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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).

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).

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.

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.

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.

In the quest for better construction workforce management, this chapter explored the background of workforce management and related theories, models, and practices. Through a review, the chapter provided meaning to the concept of construction and workforce management. The chapter concluded that while the construction industry worldwide is important to the economic growth of the countries where it operates, the industry’s management of its workforce is challenged by several problems. These problems include the nature of the industry, skill shortage, unhealthy working environment, and poor image of the industry, among others. Also, while the construction industry is rich in diversity, this has been a major source of problems for workforce management. The chapter further revealed that to improve workforce management and attain better-performing construction organisations, careful recruitment, effective training, providing a safe working environment, putting policies to promote diversity, and ensuring innovativeness, among others, are essential.

This study aims to explore the “psychological contract of safety” (PCS), a key factor in the safety climate (SC), which relies on the behavioral safety actions of workers at construction sites. While numerous factors have been identified in various sectors across different countries, there is a consensus among researchers that there is a dearth of common assessment factors specifically for the Indian construction industry (ICI). Therefore, this study undertakes a systematic review of existing literature to identify the factors that determine PCS in construction and to ascertain the relative importance index (RII) of these variables and their interrelationships using structural equation modelling (SEM).

A structured survey was conducted among 420 professionals in the ICI to collect data. This data was then analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistical methods to derive results.

The findings of the study indicate that PCS factors have a significant impact on the construction industry (CI). The inferential analysis ranks “Safety System” as the top factor with the highest RII value. The chi-square results highlight two key SC factors that enhance and regulate an organization’s safety performance. The SEM results reveal that SC factors contribute to the improvement of PCS and influence worker safety behavior.

The outcomes of this study will be beneficial for stakeholders aiming to improve safety at construction sites and enhance safety performance by fulfilling the mutual safety obligations of employers and employees and by improving safety norms, procedures and policy-making. This paper also provides a theoretical framework for scholars to reassess the results in various contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to conduct a comprehensive study on building, fire and evacuation, so as to effectively improve the efficiency of building fire evacuation and the management level of fire evacuation site. Make up for the difficulties of BIM technology in effectively connecting building information and fire data.

First, this paper establishes a fire model and an evacuation model based on BIM information. Then, the safety index (SI) is introduced as a comprehensive index, and the IRI is established by integrating the SI function to evaluate the safety of evacuation routes. Based on these two indices, the IRI-based fire evacuation model is established.

This study offers an Improved Risk Index (IRI)-based fire evacuation model, which may achieve effective evacuation in fire scenes. And the model is verified by taking the fire evacuation of a shopping center building as an example.

This paper proposes a fire evacuation principle based on IRI, so that the relevant personnel can comprehensively consider the fire factors and evacuation factors to achieve the optimization of building design, thereby improving the fire safety of buildings.

This paper aims to evaluate the current level of knowledge about lean construction (LC) practices in construction companies, universities and class organizations in Brazil and identify the barriers to implementing LC in the Brazilian construction industry and prioritize them through comparison with global challenges.

This multiple case study was carried out through a questionnaire answered by 56 construction companies, 15 universities and 10 professional associations. The questionnaire evaluation allowed the authors to determine the level of knowledge about the LC, its adoption and barriers to its adoption in the Brazilian industry. The results were statistically analyzed using the weighted average (MIS) of results using the Kruskal–Wallis test, which compares sample distribution among groups, and Cronbach’s alpha test to measure the questionnaire reliability.

This study points to universities as the main ones responsible for the low adoption of LC in Brazil and points to the need for an integrated action among construction companies, universities and class organizations to overcome the traditional project management culture and raise the level of knowledge about LC.

This study evaluated the current LC situation in an emerging country, Brazil, and compared it with the principal international challenges observed in studies of other developing countries – China, India, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Singapore – least developed countries – Bangladesh and Nigeria – and developed country – UK. These studies evaluated construction companies located in the listed countries. Based on that, 22 international challenges were established for the LC adoption. Additionally, this research also evaluated universities and working-class organizations in addition to construction companies. This addition can contribute to a better result understanding that can be explored by Brazil and other countries.

Clarifying the risk evolution mechanism of housing construction for work-safety management is essential. Existing studies have inadequately discussed the risk-accumulation process in housing construction. Therefore, this study aimed to use the complex network theory and risk allocation mechanisms to explore the evolution of risk factors.

The authors analysed a database of housing construction accidents in China from 2015 to 2020 to identify risk factors. Moreover, the causal relationship between risk factors was determined through a systematic analysis of the logical sequence of risk factors. A complex network was used to construct a risk network for housing construction accidents (RNHCA).

The risk matrix method was used to define the factor risk threshold, and a risk value was assigned based on the correlation between risk factors. This contributes to the examination of the evolution mechanism of risk networks in the process of risk factor transmission. The case verification results show that the RNHCA quantitative assessment model can better evaluate the system risk status of housing construction accidents. Furthermore, this model can identify the key risk factors and risk chains with high risk in the evolution of the risk network.

Accident investigation reports need to be classified and processed to analyse the evolution law of risk networks under different scales of construction project, such as high-rise buildings, middle-rise buildings, and low-rise buildings.

This study clarified the risk evolution process of complex systems in housing construction and provided a new method for analysing accidents.

This study clarifies the risk value allocation of risk factors in the transmission process and reveals the process of risk factor evolution in housing construction. This study explains the individual risk factors that form a systemic risk through the transmission chain. Moreover, this paper clarified the transformation relationship between system risk and accidents. The paper also provided a new perspective for risk analysis.

Previous research has analyzed the consequence of network stability; however, little is known about how partner type diversity influence network stability in R&D network. Based on knowledge-based view and social network theory, the purpose of this paper is to unravel the internal mechanisms between partner type diversity and network stability through the mediating role of knowledge recombination in R&D network.

The authors collected an unbalanced panel patent data set from information communication technology industry for the period 1994–2016. Then, the authors tested the different dimensions of partner type variety and its relevance in the R&D network and the mediating role of knowledge recombination through adopting the multiple linear regression.

Results indicate an inverted U-shaped relationship between partner type diversity (variety and relevance) and network stability, whereas knowledge recombination partially mediate these relationships.

From the perspective of R&D networks, this paper explores that there are the under-researched phenomena the antecedent of network stability through nodal attributes (i.e. partner type variety and partner type relevance). Moreover, this paper empirically examined the mediating role of knowledge recombination in the partner type diversity–network stability relationships. The novel perspective allows focal firm to recognize importance of nodal attributes, which are critical to fully excavate the potential capabilities of cooperating partners in R&D network.

Safe-to-fail (SF) is an emerging resilient design approach that has the potential to minimize the severity of flood damages. The purpose of this study is to explore the SF design strategies to reduce flood disaster damages in US coastal cities. Therefore, this study addresses two research questions: identifying the most suitable SF criteria and flood solution alternatives for coastal cities from industry professionals’ perspective; and investigating the controlling factors that influence the AEC students’ interest to learn about SF concepts through the curricula.

This study used the analytical hierarchy process to evaluate the SF criteria and flood solutions where data were collected through surveying 29 Department of Transportation professionals from different states. In addition, the study adopted a quantitative methodology by surveying 55 versed participants who reside in a coastal area and have coastal flood experiences. The data analysis included ordinal probit regression and descriptive analysis.

The results suggest that robustness is the highest weighted criterion for implementing SF design in coastal cities. The results demonstrated that ecosystem restoration is the highest-ranked SF flood solution followed by green infrastructure. Moreover, the results highlighted that age, duration spent in the program and prior knowledge of SF are significantly related to AEC students’ interest to learn this concept.

SF design anticipates failures while designing infrastructures thus minimizing failure consequences due to flood disasters. The findings can facilitate the implementation of the SF design concept during the construction of new infrastructures in coastal cities as well as educate the future workforces to contribute to developing resilient built environments.

In Morocco, as in many developing countries, environmental responsibility is not well integrated into corporate management at the operational, tactical, and strategic levels. While the management literature offers a rich body of knowledge on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategies and practices, less attention has been paid to exploring the complexity of environmental responsibility through the lens of corporate culture. This research aims to address this gap by examining the influence of cultural factors on the deployment of environmental responsibility using Johnson's (2000) model of corporate culture. This model identifies seven components of corporate culture: stories or myths, symbols, power structures, organizational structures, control systems, rituals and routines, and paradigms. Through a Moroccan industrial group case study, this chapter presents the successful deployment of environmental responsibility and describes how managing cultural factors facilitated this transition. This chapter also identifies the unique aspects of the group's culture that allowed redesigning the company's management systems. These insights offer valuable implications for managers and policymakers seeking to improve the environmental performance of large enterprises in developing countries.

This study aims to improve the reliability of emergency safety barriers by using the subjective safety analysis based on evidential reasoning theory in order to develop on a framework for optimizing the reliability of emergency safety barriers.

The emergency event tree analysis is combined with an interval type-2 fuzzy-set and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method. In order to the quantitative data is not available, this study based on interval type2 fuzzy set theory, trapezoidal fuzzy numbers describe the expert's imprecise uncertainty about the fuzzy failure probability of emergency safety barriers related to the liquefied petroleum gas storage prevent. Fuzzy fault tree analysis and fuzzy ordered weighted average aggregation are used to address uncertainties in emergency safety barrier reliability assessment. In addition, a critical analysis and some corrective actions are suggested to identify weak points in emergency safety barriers. Therefore, a framework decisions are proposed to optimize and improve safety barrier reliability. Decision-making in this framework uses evidential reasoning theory to identify corrective actions that can optimize reliability based on subjective safety analysis.

A real case study of a liquefied petroleum gas storage in Algeria is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology. The results show that the proposed methodology provides the possibility to evaluate the values of the fuzzy failure probability of emergency safety barriers. In addition, the fuzzy failure probabilities using the fuzzy type-2 AHP method are the most reliable and accurate. As a result, the improved fault tree analysis can estimate uncertain expert opinion weights, identify and evaluate failure probability values for critical basic event. Therefore, suggestions for corrective measures to reduce the failure probability of the fire-fighting system are provided. The obtained results show that of the ten proposed corrective actions, the corrective action “use of periodic maintenance tests” prioritizes reliability, optimization and improvement of safety procedures.

This study helps to determine the safest and most reliable corrective measures to improve the reliability of safety barriers. In addition, it also helps to protect people inside and outside the company from all kinds of major industrial accidents. Among the limitations of this study is that the cost of corrective actions is not taken into account.

Our contribution is to propose an integrated approach that uses interval type-2 fuzzy sets and AHP method and emergency event tree analysis to handle uncertainty in the failure probability assessment of emergency safety barriers. In addition, the integration of fault tree analysis and fuzzy ordered averaging aggregation helps to improve the reliability of the fire-fighting system and optimize the corrective actions that can improve the safety practices in liquefied petroleum gas storage tanks.