Owners’ Safety Management Behaviors in Construction

Owners' safety management behaviors in the construction industry are attracting increasing attention. However, previous research mostly focused on specific safety management practices on construction sites but ignored the influence of safety leadership and safety culture on owners' safety management behaviors. To fill this gap, this study aimed to develop an influencing mechanism involving owners' safety leadership, safety culture, and safety management behaviors. First, a series of interviews and archives studies were conducted in two large real estate developers in China to identify safety management dimensions that can significantly impact construction safety practice. Then, a questionnaire related to owners' safety management behaviors was developed, and the influencing mechanism was empirically tested. The results show that owners' safety leadership and safety culture could directly and positively impact owners' safety management behaviors in the construction industry, and that owners' safety culture could act as a significant mediator in the relationship between safety leadership and safety behavior. These findings can help the academia to advance the understanding of safety management behaviors, and enable the industry to further improve the safety performance of the construction safety.