A Safety Climate Framework for Improving Health and Safety in the Indonesian Construction Industry

Fatma Lestari, Riza Yosia Sunindijo, Martin Loosemore, Yuni Kusminanti and Baiduri Widanarko
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Fatma Lestari: Occupational Health & Safety Department, Faculty of Public Health, Universitas Indonesia, Depok 16424, Indonesia
Riza Yosia Sunindijo: Faculty of Built Environment, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia
Martin Loosemore: School of Built Environment, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2007, Australia
Yuni Kusminanti: Occupational Safety, Health & Environmental Unit, Universitas Indonesia, Depok 16424, Indonesia
Baiduri Widanarko: Occupational Health & Safety Department, Faculty of Public Health, Universitas Indonesia, Depok 16424, Indonesia

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 20, 1-20

Abstract: The Indonesian construction industry is the second largest in Asia and accounts for over 30% of all occupational injuries in the country. Despite the size of the industry, there is a lack of safety research in this context. This research, therefore, aims to assess safety climate and develop a framework to improve safety in the Indonesian construction industry. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected from 311 construction workers. The results show a moderately healthy safety climate but reflect numerous problems, particularly around perceived conflicts between production and safety logics, cost trade-offs being made against other competing project priorities, poor safety communication, poor working conditions, acceptance of poor safety as the norm, poor reporting and monitoring practices, poor training and a risky and unsupportive working environment which prevents workers from operating safely. Two new safety climate paradoxes are also revealed: contradictions between management communications and management practices; contradictions between worker concern for safety and their low sense of personal accountability and empowerment for acting to reduce these risks. A low locus of control over safety is also identified as a significant problem which is related to prevailing Indonesian cultural norms and poor safety policy implementation and potential conflicts between formal and informal safety norms, practices and procedures. Drawing on these findings, a new integrated framework of safety climate is presented to improve safety performance in the Indonesian construction industry.

Keywords: construction; Indonesia; locus of control; safety climate; safety norms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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