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The paper aims to review current practices of road safety audits worldwide, investigate the perceptions of experts on highway work zone safety in the USA and issues of adopting work zone safety audits in the country, and propose a framework for developing guidelines for implementing work zone safety audits for safety improvements.

The paper was conducted by reviewing the existing literature of road safety audits and administering four‐week questionnaire surveys of experts on highway work zone safety in the USA.

Road safety audits have been successfully adopted worldwide to maximize safety of the roadway environment for highway users. The questionnaire surveys have clarified leading causes of work zone safety problems and effective countermeasures, types of projects suitable for auditing and audit frequencies, audit team composition and funding sources, audit tasks and tools, and project staff safety training audits. A similar procedure for road safety audits could be adopted for work zone safety audits with emphasis on mitigating work zone safety impacts.

Additional survey participants from the highway user group may add valuable insights into the use of highway work zone safety audits for safety improvements.

The paper findings would assist in preparing strategies and methodologies for developing the national highway work zone safety audit guidelines in the USA.

The work zone safety audit guidelines to be developed could help transportation practitioners effectively conduct work zone safety audits for safety improvements in the country.

Aims to examine the impact of health and safety legislation emanating from the European Community and to analyse what effect, if any, it will have on British occupational health and safety law. An examination of the social action programmes shows that the pace of change has increased rapidly since the Single European Act was incorporated into the Treaty of Rome and became operative from July 1987. Because of rapid changes that are occurring on a broad front there was a need to be selective. Emphasizes to some extent, therefore, the construction industry because it would appear that European legislation is likely to have a major impact on British law and practice in this industry.

The purpose of this research is to focus on the serious but under‐examined incidence of fatalities and injuries among rail trackworkers. It identifies the pressures on trackwork, locating them within an analysis of the economic structure of the privatised rail industry and illustrates the consequences of these pressures at the operational level.

A series of semi‐structured interviews was held with management representatives of the infrastructure and maintenance companies, rail safety bodies and officials and representatives of the RMT. These were supplemented by focus‐group style discussions with track maintenance workers in Scotland and the North of England. The paper then relates these qualitative data to the analysis of recent major incidents which have involved fatalities of rail employees.

Within the structure of the post‐privatised industry, improvements to the safety regime are always in danger of being constrained by countervailing economic and organisational pressures. There is a marked discrepancy between the higher level safety structure and the experience of employees at track level.

There is virtually no workforce input into the construction of safety procedures despite the fact that rail workers' commitment to the industry represents a large untapped resource for safety improvement.

The rail industry in general, and trackwork in particular, have been conspicuously under‐researched since privatisation.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations undertook initiatives such as safety coaching to ensure the safety of their employees and to prevent the spread of the disease. However, the question arises if such measures can have a spill-over effect on other important work-related outcomes. Hence, the objective of the current study is to uncover the impact of safety coaching on one such outcome, i.e. work engagement.

In this study, the authors developed a quantitative model with the help of the social exchange theory. The responses of 250 working professionals captured using a three-wave study were analyzed using the SPSS PROCESS macro.

The authors found that safety coaching does not directly affect work engagement. It is only when safety coaching is perceived to be effective or appropriate and/or invokes organizational trust that it significantly affects organizational members' work engagement.

This study motivates practitioners to adopt safety coaching by highlighting the benefits that it has to offer beyond safety-related behavior. Moreover, this study discusses mechanisms that can aid organizations in facilitating organizational trust and satisfaction with corporate philanthropic COVID-19 response among employees.

This is one of the first studies that examines the spillover effect of safety coaching on other work-related outcomes. It also uncovers novel antecedents of satisfaction with corporate philanthropic COVID-19 response and organizational trust.

Compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals published by MCB University Press: Facilities Volumes 8‐18; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐18; Property Management Volumes 8‐18; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐18.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the enactment of safety routines in a transshipment port. Research on work safety and reliability has largely neglected the role of the workers’ knowledge in practice in the enactment of organisational safety. The workers’ lack of compliance with safety regulations represents an enduring problem that often involves first-level managers, who are willing to turn a blind eye toward divergent practices. The CHAT conceptual vocabulary and theoretical model is used to explore this issue.

A grounded, empirical study in a large transshipment port in the Mediterranean area is conducted. Ethnographic methods including participant observation and interviews are used, and emerging data are analyzed through an interpretive methodology. The paper explores 30 employees’ narrated accounts of how safety rules are enacted or infringed while living and working in the field in a transshipment port. Data obtained through organisational shadowing provided secondary data. Interview data were analyzed using content analysis, using a CHAT framework. Constant comparison and theoretical sensitivity were pursued through an iterative analysis process.

This study documented the critical role the workers’ knowledge played in practice in ensuring the efficient functioning of the port, and evidenced that the disconnect between safety procedures and technical productivity standards is the most important factor determining the erratic compliance with prescribed procedures. The selective application of safety norms was deliberate in nature, collectively shared and culturally regulated.

This contribution fails to address probably the most important aspect of the activity theoretical approach: its developmental orientation. The initial analysis intervention was meant to lead to a longitudinal process of expansive learning and development in the activity system. The authors had planned to initiate a cycle of expansive learning laboratories involving representatives of the dockworkers, the port management and the safety certification firm, but this had to be postponed to an undefined time due to the significant changes occurred in the international maritime cargo industry and the decision of the multinational company who owns the transshipment port to cut down its cargo traffic and privilege other ports in the Mediterranean area.

The practical implications of the case study concern the conception and design of safety training and management for the port organisation. By acknowledging the disconnect between espoused safety routines and the constraints and affordances of the workers’ everyday work practice, it is suggested that safety training could be more effective if it engaged the workers (or first-level supervisors) in the fine tuning of safety regulations. Workplace learning opportunities could enable the workers to learn and construct situated safety practices.

This paper seeks to highlight how the consideration of local knowledge and context-dependent practices can achieve better comprehension of situated application of safety norms.

The paper contributes to understanding the complexity of enacting and translating safety procedures into everyday work practices.

Index by subjects, compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals: Facilities Volumes 8‐18; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐18; Property Management Volumes 8‐18; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐18.

Health and safety in small construction firms is often neglected by owners leading to poor health and safety performance and unacceptably high fatality and injury rates. A body of knowledge has established significant links between the motivational behaviours of operatives towards health and safety. Motivation is also considered as a key tool for improving operative productivity as when operatives experience safe worksites, they can carry out their work in a more productive manner. The purpose of this research is to develop a framework to examine the motivational factors that affect operative health and safety in small construction firms.

A critical review and synthesis of the body of knowledge incorporating motivational theory, health and safety literature and the factors which characterise small firms, is used to develop the framework.

Key components of the framework include the presence of intrinsic and extrinsic components, appropriate health and safety policies and procedures, the type of work environment, the operatives (i.e. attitude, experience and training) as well as the presence of appropriate management and supervision. The study revealed that operatives in small firms are less likely to be extrinsically motivated due to the absence of training, management commitment, policies and the wider working environment

Failure of motivational support can result in increased danger and risk in exposing operatives to injury in the small firm environment. In this context, the damage caused to operative's health and safety in small construction firms is dependent mainly on the extrinsic factors.

The framework provides a basis for improving our understanding of how to motivate operatives to act safely and will help to improve the health and safety performance of small firms. It is therefore vital to emphasise enhancement efforts on these extrinsic strategies in the small firms' environment especially in the initial stages of the project (or activity), so that the health and safety of operatives in small firms can be improved.

This study proposes a contribution in developing an understanding of the motivational factors and their influence on the health and safety of operatives in small construction firms. The study revealed that operatives in small firms are less likely to be extrinsically motivated and have only intrinsically motivated elements in their workplace. The study proposes an indirect link between the extrinsic and intrinsic factors that affect motivation.

Compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals published by MCB University Press: Facilities Volumes 8‐18; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐18; Property Management Volumes 8‐18; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐18.

Drawing on ego depletion theory, this study aims to provide insights into the effect of work-family conflict on the high-speed railway (HSR) drivers’ safety performance by examining the mediating role of ego depletion and the moderating roles of work-family centrality and supervisor safety support.

In total, 243 HSR drivers from 7 railway bureaus in China were surveyed. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses.

Both work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict have direct and positive effects on HSR drivers’ ego depletion and indirect effects on both safety compliance and safety participation via ego depletion. Moreover, both the direct effect of work-family conflict on ego depletion and its indirect effect on safety performance are moderated by work-family centrality. Supervisor safety support plays a buffering role in the relationship between ego depletion and safety performance.

This study examined the relationship between work-family conflict and safety performance based on the perspective of ego depletion theory. The findings testify to the importance of reducing work-family conflict among HSR drivers pursuant to maximizing safety.