Influence of Safety Culture on Safety Performance in Saudi Arabian Construction Industry - Thesis Example

The paper "Influence of Safety Culture on Safety Performance in Saudi Arabian Construction Industry" is a perfect example of a management thesis. Safety must be ensured in the workplace at all times, more so in the construction industry, where many hazards are present. The whole level of construction safety in Saudi Arabia has been rather low with less than 60% of adherence to safety rules. Saudi Arabia does not also have specific legal provisions and standards for safety in the workplace, specifically in the construction industry.

As a result, safety culture is not part of the core organisational culture of these construction organisations and that even if it is; it is not part of their commitment. Therefore, there is a need to explore and evaluate the influence that the safety culture has on safety performance particularly within Saudi Arabian construction industry. The outcome of this research is useful in helping stakeholders in the construction industry to understand better the correlation between the safety and organisational culture and to make a connection with the overall improvements in the productivity of the industry when both of these factors have been considered into a collective concept known as the safety culture.

Therefore, the aim of the research is to develop a framework on how to improve safety culture that affects safety performance in Saudi Arabian construction industry. This study followed the interpretivism philosophy as the epistemological position and subjectivism as the ontological assumption, which dependents on people’s interpretations and their actions. In line with the use of the interpretivism philosophy, the inductive research approach is selected. The research strategy for this study includes the survey and case study.

The survey strategy included semi-structured interviews and questionnaire as techniques. For the questionnaire survey, 135 responses were received from the rank of managers, engineers, foremen, and labourers in Saudi Arabian construction companies. The results from the survey were tabulated and statistical analysis was conducted using SPSS software and with the help of the ANOVA test for correlations. This study selected three case studies from three large construction companies in Saudi Arabia (Ministry of Transport, Dar Al Handasah, Bin Laden Group).

A total of 15 interviews were carried out within 3 case studies.