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Exploring a comprehensive knowledge map for promoting safety management research in the construction industry

Liang Wang (School of Maritime Economics and Management, Dalian Maritime University, Dalian, China)
Yiming Cheng (School of Maritime Economics and Management, Dalian Maritime University, Dalian, China)

Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management

ISSN: 0969-9988

Article publication date: 29 April 2021

Issue publication date: 8 April 2022

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper was to map the safety management research of construction industry by scientometric analysis, which can predict important highlights and future research directions of safety management research in the construction industry. As an important issue in the construction industry, safety management issues have been researched from different perspectives. Although previous studies make knowledge contributions to the safety management research of construction industry, there are still huge obstacles to distinguish the comprehensive knowledge map of safety management research in the construction industry.

Design/methodology/approach

This study applies three scientometric analysis methods, collaboration network analysis, co-occurrence network analysis and cocitation network analysis, to the safety management research of construction industry. 5,406 articles were retrieved from the core collection database of the Web of Science. CiteSpace was used for constructing a comprehensive analysis framework to analyze and visualize the safety management research of construction industry. According to integrating the analysis results, a knowledge map for the safety management research of construction industry can be constructed.

Findings

The analysis results revealed the academic communities, key research topics and knowledge body of safety management research in the construction industry. The evolution paths of safety management research in the construction industry were divided into three development stages: “construction safety management”, “multi-objective safety management” and “comprehensive safety management”. Five research directions were predicted on the future safety management research of construction industry, including (1) comprehensive assessment indicators system; (2) intelligent safety management; (3) cross-organization collaboration of safety management; (4) multilevel safety behavior perception and (5) comparative analysis of safety climate.

Originality/value

The findings can reveal the overall status of safety management research in the construction industry and represent a high-quality knowledge body of safety management research in the construction industry that accurately reflects the comprehensive knowledge map on the safety management research of construction industry. The findings also predict important highlights and future research directions of safety management research in the construction industry, which will help researchers in the safety management research of construction industry for future collaboration and work.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the National Social Science Fund of China (No. 18ZDA043). The work described in this paper was also supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (NO. 71671053, NO. 71841024, NO. 71771067, No. 71390522), the Social Science Planning Foundation of Liaoning Province (No. L20BGL056) and the Economic and Social Development Research Foundation of Liaoning Province (No. 20211slqnkt-014).

Data availability statement: Some or all data, models or codes that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Citation

Wang, L. and Cheng, Y. (2022), "Exploring a comprehensive knowledge map for promoting safety management research in the construction industry", Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, Vol. 29 No. 4, pp. 1678-1714. https://doi.org/10.1108/ECAM-11-2020-0984

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited

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