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1 – 10 of over 34000Wenwei Huang, Deyu Zhong and Yanlin Chen
Construction enterprises are achieving the goal of production safety by increasingly focusing on the critical factor of “human” and the impact of individual characteristics on…
Abstract
Purpose
Construction enterprises are achieving the goal of production safety by increasingly focusing on the critical factor of “human” and the impact of individual characteristics on safety performance. Emotional intelligence is categorized into three models: skill-based, trait-based and emotional learning systems. However, the mechanism of action and the internal relationship between emotional intelligence and safety performance must be further studied. This study intends to examine the internal mechanism of emotional intelligence on safety performance in construction projects, which would contribute to the safety management of construction enterprises.
Design/methodology/approach
A structural equation model exploring the relationship between emotional intelligence and safety performance is developed, with political skill introduced as an independent dimension, situational awareness presented as a mediator, and management safety commitment introduced as a moderator. Data were collected by a random questionnaire and analyzed by SPSS 24.0 and AMOS 26.0. The structural equation model tested the mediation hypothesis, and the PROCESS macro program tested the moderated mediation hypothesis.
Findings
The results showed that construction workers' emotional intelligence directly correlates with safety performance, and situational awareness plays a mediating role in the relationship between emotional intelligence and the safety performance of construction workers. Management safety commitment weakens the positive predictive relationships between emotional intelligence and situational awareness and between emotional intelligence and safety performance.
Originality/value
This research reveals a possible impact of emotional intelligence on safety performance. Adding political skills to the skill-based model of emotional intelligence received a test pass. Political skill measures the sincere and cooperative skills of construction workers. Using people as a critical element plays a role in the benign mechanism of “Emotional Intelligence – Situational Awareness – Safety Performance.” Improving emotional intelligence skills through training, enhancing situational awareness, understanding, anticipation and coordination and activating management environment factors can improve safety performance. Construction enterprises should evaluate and train workers' emotional intelligence to improve workers' situational awareness and safety performance.
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This paper aims to follow-up on previous research by studying the degree of management commitment to information and communication technology (ICT) safety and security within…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to follow-up on previous research by studying the degree of management commitment to information and communication technology (ICT) safety and security within network companies in the electric power supply sector, implementation of awareness creation and training measures for ICT safety and security within these companies and the relationship between these two variables.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were mainly collected through a survey among users of ICT systems in network companies within the Norwegian electric power supply sector. In addition, qualitative data were gathered through interviews with representatives from the regulatory authorities, and observation studies were conducted at ICT safety and security conferences.
Findings
In accordance with previous research, our survey data showed a statistically significant correlation between management commitment to ICT safety and security and implementation of awareness creation and training measures. The majority of survey respondents viewed the degree of management commitment to ICT safety and security within their own organization as high, even though qualitative studies showed contradictory results. The network companies had implemented awareness creation and training measures to a varying degree. However, interactive awareness measures were used to a lesser extent than formal one-way communication methods.
Originality/value
The paper provides insight into management commitment to and implementation of awareness creation and training measures for ICT safety and security within network companies.
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Chin-Shan Lu, Ho Yee Poon and Hsiang-Kai Weng
This study aims to propose a safety marketing stimuli-response model to explain passengers’ safety behavior in the ferry services context.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to propose a safety marketing stimuli-response model to explain passengers’ safety behavior in the ferry services context.
Design/methodology/approach
Structural equation modeling was conducted to examine the impact of safety marketing stimuli on passengers’ safety awareness and behavior by using data obtained from a survey of 316 ferry passengers in Hong Kong.
Findings
The authors found that passengers’ perceptions of ferry safety marketing stimuli positively affected their safety awareness and safety awareness positively affected passengers’ safety behaviors. Specifically, they found that safety awareness played a mediating role in the relationship between ferry safety marketing stimuli and passengers’ safety behaviors.
Practical/implications
The empirically validated scales can be adapted to practices of safety marketing, while providing helpful information for ferry operators to evaluate their efforts of safety marketing and implications for improvement.
Originality/value
According to the authors' knowledge, this study is one of the first attempts to fill this research gap by empirically validating and theoretically conceptualizing measures of safety marketing stimuli based on the marketing stimulus-response model.
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Organizations worldwide use virtual teams to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic and capitalize on distributed members' unique expertise to accomplish essential tasks. A critical…
Abstract
Purpose
Organizations worldwide use virtual teams to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic and capitalize on distributed members' unique expertise to accomplish essential tasks. A critical reason that inhibits virtual team members from leveraging each other’s knowledge is a lack of psychological safety. Specifically, individuals are unwilling to speak out for fear of negative repercussions, such as embarrassment to one’s image and rejection from others in their teams. The purpose of this study is to advance the importance of distinct awareness (task knowledge and presence) enabled by information technologies in developing the psychological safety of men and women in virtual teams.
Design/methodology/approach
This study tested the hypotheses using a survey study of 94 participants from 19 graduate student virtual teams.
Findings
This study found that task knowledge awareness predicted psychological safety for men, whereas it was presence awareness for women. By demonstrating the role of awareness in promoting psychological safety for men and women in virtual teams, this study also sheds light on reducing online gender inequitable issues.
Practical implications
First, organizational managers need to incorporate gender when deciding the awareness type to promote psychological safety in virtual teams. For men, it is task knowledge awareness, whereas for women, it is presence awareness. Second, as there is a wide range of information technologies (ITs) available, managers need to identify if the provided ITs enable virtual team members to develop the specific type of knowledge awareness critical for psychological safety development. Third, managers can incorporate rewards and apply interventions at regular temporal periods to encourage team members to increase their online presence as well as question and share task-related content.
Originality/value
It is imperative to identify ways to encourage men and women working in virtual teams to speak up so that the expertise held by the members can be better leveraged. This study represents an important step in this direction.
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The research was carried out to statistically evaluate the relationship between the safety measures at the construction sites and the actual and perceived knowledge levels of the…
Abstract
Purpose
The research was carried out to statistically evaluate the relationship between the safety measures at the construction sites and the actual and perceived knowledge levels of the employees about these measures.
Design/methodology/approach
Face-to-face surveys were conducted with the workers. The survey included some perception-based questions about preventive measures at the construction site, as well as determining the level of awareness of employees on occupational health and safety (OHS) practices. The data were analyzed with descriptive statistical methods and bivariate correlation analysis.
Findings
The actual knowledge levels of workers on OHS measures in the workplace is significantly lower than their perceived knowledge levels. However, there is a positive, linear and strong relationship between the actual knowledge levels of the employees about some OHS rules applied in the workplace and the general level of knowledge they perceive about themselves. Some protective measures such as occupational safety expert, OHS board, employee representatives, training and information activities at construction sites positively affect the safety awareness of employees. However, low-frequency and documentation-intensive activities such as risk assessment, emergency activities and periodic controls have no or weak correlations.
Originality/value
Perception-based opinions of construction site workers on occupational safety issues are transformed into numerical data and analyzed with a quantitative method.
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Ana Isabel Polo-Peña, Hazel Andrews and Javier Torrico-Jódar
This paper examines whether following a health crisis the use of health and safety protocols and hotel brand awareness influences hotel perceived value and intention to visit.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper examines whether following a health crisis the use of health and safety protocols and hotel brand awareness influences hotel perceived value and intention to visit.
Design/methodology/approach
Using an experimental design, the study evaluates the effectiveness of the use of health and safety protocols and the moderating effect of brand awareness on perceived value and intention to visit.
Findings
The results show that the hotels using health and safety protocols (compared to those that do not use them) will achieve a higher perceived value and intention to visit. In addition, the awareness of brand does not moderate the effect of the health and safety protocols on perceived value and intention to visit.
Practical implications
This research identifies mechanisms for future consideration by hotel companies to promote the recovery of their activity after a health crisis. Specifically, using health and safety protocols will result in the market evaluating the brand more highly and produce a greater intention to visit. At the same time, the research indicates that regardless of whether the brand is well-known or not, the use of a health and safety protocol is advantageous.
Originality/value
This study offers new insights that can be useful for developing a resilient hotel sector in the face of future health crises. Specifically, the results show progress in understanding the effects that the use of health and safety protocols and brand awareness have on key consumer variables for the recovery of the sector in a post-pandemic context.
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Qinjun Liu, Gui Ye and Yingbin Feng
Although research on prefabricated construction has gained increasing attention in recent years, limited efforts have been devoted to investigating safety issues in the off-site…
Abstract
Purpose
Although research on prefabricated construction has gained increasing attention in recent years, limited efforts have been devoted to investigating safety issues in the off-site manufacture, especially workers’ behavioral intentions to work safely. Thus, research is needed to identify the motivational factors determining off-site construction workers’ safety behaviors. The purpose of this paper is to investigate workers’ safety behavior by examining the determinants of behavioral intention in the off-site manufacturing plants in China.
Design/methodology/approach
Theory of planned behavior (TPB) was modified and used in this study to explain how the elements in the hypothesized model interact. Data were collected using a questionnaire. Structural equation modeling technique with partial least-squares estimation was used to analyze the data collected.
Findings
The findings of this study indicated that workers’ tendency to engage in safety behavior is positively related to attitude toward the behavior, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control and behavioral habit, among which attitude toward the behavior and behavioral habit have most significant influences on safety behavior. This finding provides a better explanation on the pathways and the impacts of the crucial factors on the safety behaviors for the off-site manufacture.
Originality/value
The possible innovation of this research lies in its attempt to understand the antecedents of workers’ safety behavior in the off-site construction environment, which may make original contributions to construction safety research and practice. The findings of this study contribute to the body of knowledge in TPB. Corresponding countermeasures are put forward in order to improve workers’ safety behavior in off-site construction.
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Caroline Millman, Dan Rigby, Davey Jones and Gareth Edwards-Jones
Food poisoning attributable to the home generates a large disease burden, yet is an unregulated and largely unobserved domain. Investigating food safety awareness and routine…
Abstract
Purpose
Food poisoning attributable to the home generates a large disease burden, yet is an unregulated and largely unobserved domain. Investigating food safety awareness and routine practices is fraught with difficulties. The purpose of this paper is to develop and apply a new survey tool to elicit awareness of food hazards. Data generated by the approach are analysed to investigate the impact of oberservable heterogeneity on food safety awareness.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors develop a novel Watch-and-Click survey tool to assess the level of awareness of a set of hazardous food safety behaviours in the domestic kitchen. Participants respond to video footage stimulus, in which food hazards occur, via mouse clicks/screen taps. This real-time response data is analysed via estimation of count and logit models to investigate how hazard identification patterns vary over observable characteristics.
Findings
User feedback regarding the Watch-and-Click tool approach is extremely positive. Substantive results include significantly higher hazard awareness among the under 60s. People who thought they knew more than the average person did indeed score higher but people with food safety training/experience did not. Vegetarians were less likely to identify four of the five cross-contamination hazards they observed.
Originality/value
A new and engaging survey tool to elicit hazard awareness with real-time scores and feedback is developed, with high levels of user engagement and stakeholder interest. The approach may be applied to elicit hazard awareness in a wide range of contexts including education, training and research.
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Khalizani Khalid, Khalisanni Khalid and Ross Davidson
The purpose of this paper is to identify the factor structure of safety culture construct among engineering students at university context and to examine the measurement…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify the factor structure of safety culture construct among engineering students at university context and to examine the measurement invariance of this instrument across different socio-demographic groups in a sample of engineering students in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Design/methodology/approach
An exploratory online questionnaire was completed by 770 undergraduate and postgraduate engineering students across the UAE. Data were analyzed using a diversified multi-group and a robust and sophisticated cross-validation testing strategy. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to test factor structures identified in previous studies. Multi-group invariance testing was conducted to determine the extent to which factor structure is comparable across groups (i.e. gender, educational and experiential background).
Findings
Three-factor model was preferred for its parsimony. The results showed that the level of safety awareness and attitude is relatively satisfactory, whereas safety behaviour is inadequate. No significant difference was showed in multi-group invariance between demographic groups.
Research limitations/implications
This research is a cross-sectional study and limited to the views of engineering students (informal group). The study would benefit from both informal and formal groups in assessing safety culture at university for a robust empirical evidence. The research highlights relevant implications for policy and program development, by pointing to the need to promote safety culture and mitigate safety-related accidents among engineering students.
Originality/value
This paper offers insight into benefit of understanding the level of safety culture among engineering students and extend knowledge of informal group involvement in safety-related accidents at university level.
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High prevalence of violence against persons with disabilities (PwDs) has prompted a steady growth of training aimed at equipping PwDs with personal safety skills. This paper aims…
Abstract
Purpose
High prevalence of violence against persons with disabilities (PwDs) has prompted a steady growth of training aimed at equipping PwDs with personal safety skills. This paper aims to examine the efficacy of safety trainings for PwDs.
Design/methodology/approach
A search of relevant electronic databases was conducted to shortlist peer-reviewed literature on empirically evaluated safety trainings for PwDs, between January 2010 and August 2020 with the defined inclusion criteria.
Findings
Six safety programmes were reviewed. Data analysis revealed key themes related to programme modifications for accessibility; fit of intervention to disability type; PwDs’ learning needs; and the context of disability abuse in designing intervention pathways.
Originality/value
PwDs can benefit from and contribute to safety training, if programmes are adequately modified to support their learning and participation. Future studies can target disability abuse by known persons; different disability groups; and generate longitudinal data to strengthen validity of programme efficacy.
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