The Risk-Taking Propensity of Construction Workers—An Application of Quasi-Expert Interview

Banus Kam Leung Low, Siu Shing Man and Alan Hoi Shou Chan
Additional contact information
Banus Kam Leung Low: Department of Systems Engineering and Engineering Management, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Siu Shing Man: Department of Systems Engineering and Engineering Management, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Alan Hoi Shou Chan: Department of Systems Engineering and Engineering Management, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 10, 1-11

Abstract: High accident rates have been a complicated and persistent problem in the Hong Kong construction industry. This situation has stimulated this investigation into factors that influence the risk-taking propensity of construction workers. However, interviewing workers who had a bad experience is problematic because changes in attitude and perception may occur as a result of such an experience. Using quasi-expert interviews can reduce this problem. The objective of this study was to identify factors that influence the risk-taking propensity of construction workers. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 safety professionals all with accident inspection experience and six super-safe workers with no incident record for the past five years. Seven factors that affect the risk-taking propensity of construction workers were successfully identified. Each factor is thoughtfully discussed, and this study shows that quasi-expert interview is a pragmatic approach for deepening the understanding of risk-taking propensity among construction workers. Findings of this study will hopefully help and encourage further quantitative research on the risk-taking propensity of construction workers with different perspectives.

Keywords: construction safety; individual factor; organisational factor; quasi-expert interview; risk-taking propensity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/10/2250/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/15/10/2250/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:15:y:2018:i:10:p:2250-:d:175641

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().