The role of national culture on risk perception and risk-taking behaviours in construction workers

Symposium: Psychological topics in risk perception and risk decision-making Paper 3/4 The construction industry in Europe employs more than 12 million people making it Europe’s largest industrial employer. The European... [ view full abstract ]

Symposium: Psychological topics in risk perception and risk decision-making
Paper 3/4

The construction industry in Europe employs more than 12 million people making it Europe’s largest industrial employer. The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work estimates that around 1300 construction workers are killed each year, which is more than twice the average of other sectors. In an effort to address this problem, the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work and national government agencies (e.g. the UK’s Health and Safety Executive) have developed a number of campaigns to inform construction workers about the main risks to which they are exposed and preventive steps that they can take. Some of these campaigns have been effective in reducing the rate of injuries, although the overall number of accidents is still relatively high.

One possible explanation for this is that there are a large number of foreign transient workers in the construction industry who often struggle with the English language (Sinclair et al., 2008) which may affect their risk learning. Aronsson (1999) found that transient workers reported a greater lack of work environment knowledge than permanent workers and perceived themselves to be disadvantaged with respect to the training and education. There may also be effects of national culture which may affect foreign transient workers’ risk perception and risk-taking behaviours. To date, the role of cross-cultural factors on occupational risk perception and risk-taking behaviours has remained largely unexplored.

This paper presents the findings from a ‘Theory of Planned Behaviour’ questionnaire from a sample of multi-national construction workers working on the Queensferry Crossing in Edinburgh, UK. It will compare workers from five national groups on power distance (a dimension of national culture), occupational risk perception, attitude to safety behaviours, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control, and self-report safety behaviours. It is expected that workers from higher power distance cultures will exhibit more positive attitudes and subjective norms to safety behaviours about working on the Queensferry Crossing and report more positive safety behaviours. Workers from lower power distance cultures are expected to exhibit higher perceived behavioural control about working on the Queensferry Crossing but report more risk-taking and fewer positive behaviours. These hypotheses will be tested and the implications for modifying construction workers' risk perceptions and risk-taking behaviours will be discussed.