BACKGROUND: Despite numerous regulatory initiatives to improve health and safety in the construction industry, it still ranks as one of the most accident-prone industries worldwide. A dedicated focus on safety culture has been suggested as a complement to laws, regulations and management systems.

OBJECTIVE: This article explores safety culture research conducted in the construction industry, with the aim to provide insight into the specific themes that tend to be in focus as well as what theoretical and methodological approaches that tend to be favored.

METHODS: Searches in scientific databases were conducted twice. In a first attempt, searches resulted in 54 hits but only two articles fit the scope of the study. A revision of the search phrase resulted in 124 hits. Ultimately, 17 articles fit the scope of the study and were included. The content of the articles was analyzed and sorted thematically.

RESULTS: The results show that four themes are prevalent in the existing literature: 1) unique challenges entail a need for situated applications, 2) models developed to operationalize safety culture, 3) measuring safety culture, and 4) safety management and leadership as key factors.

CONCLUSION:Although research focusing on the construction industry has come to favor certain study designs and definitions of safety culture, further research may be enriched by broadening the theoretical and methodological perspectives. Specifically, researchers should conduct more in-depth qualitative studies that take the complexity of the industry into account, including the interpersonal relations between the actors involved.

The problem of occupational accidents in the construction industry has necessitated a focus on proactive measures such as safety management programs. An example of this is safety parks, i.e. facilities where employees and managers from different construction companies can participate in site-specific activities and train in safety-related matters in a realistic context. Two specific focus areas are often present within these types of safety management programs: hands-on safety training and safety culture development as being within the purview of management. The purpose of this article is to investigate the developers’ intentions with the park in relation to safety culture development. Twenty interviews were conducted with experts in the area of health and safety. Results indicate that the safety park can contribute as a mirror for the companies own operations, with new information and knowledge of how work can be performed with safety being prioritized, to developing communication regarding safety-related matters, and finally the stations at the park may initiate a translation process as to how the lessons learned at the park can be applied to the participants’ own workplaces. All in all, the activities at the park can be said to be normative in nature, i.e. the developers seemingly have a desire to steer the safety culture development in a certain direction. There is a need for further research focusing on the concept of safety culture in these types of programs and, more broadly, in relation to its intended industry-wide effects.

The EU directive 92/57/EEC focuses on ensuring that health and safety-related matters are taken into consideration during every stage of construction-related work and has been introduced into the regulations of the member countries. In 2006, Sweden was tasked by the European Commission to clarify its implementation of the directive, including which management roles and responsibilities were to come into effect during both the planning and eventual execution of construction work—changes that ultimately were introduced into the national regulations in 2009. Focusing on the accident trends in the construction industry in the years immediately following these regulatory changes, we find that the new management roles and responsibilities had no apparent effect on the accident rates. Furthermore, we argue that there is a need to broaden the analysis regarding the implementation of the EU directive 92/57/EEC to also include nation-specific changes to health and safety management and policy. These qualitative studies should also include a dedicated focus on how changes to management structures and processes may affect the prevalence of occupational diseases specifically.

Professional business-to-business sales work and relations tend to be interlinked with structures and symbols of certain forms of masculinity. From interviews held with office staff employed by a large male-dominated company in the Swedish base industry, this study explores how the gendering of sales work is enabled and contested in relation to the practices and processes of specific organizations. The presented findings show how negotiations of “good sales” involve contestations of specific gendering practices and of the value of sales work, sales relations and underlying organizational values and control. As a result, homosocial behaviors and masculine ideals associated with the salesperson no longer hold privileged positions in organizations. However, it was the individual salespersons and their behavior that were put forward as the primary problem rather than the organizational practices and processes providing men with power, space and subjectivity. Thus, the negotiations of sales work and relations seem to lead not to disruptions but to a restructuring of masculinities and to a reshaping of organizational inequalities in a company.

The purpose of this study is to anazlye accidents occurring in the Swedish construction industry focusing specifically on the situation in the individual trades. The article includes all occupational accidents with at least one day of absence from work that were reported to the Swedish Social Insurance Agency for the year of 2016. The results, focusing on accident cause, injured body parts, as well as accidents per weekday, month and age, show that although the trades share commonalities regarding occupational accidents a number of trade-specific problem areas stand out. With this in mind, conclusions are drawn regarding the situation in each respective trade and suggestions are made for future studies focusing on accidents in construction industry trades.

Increased female participation has been highlighted as necessary to fill a labor shortage in the construction industry, but also to promote equality and efficiency. Despite initiatives to recruit women, the industry remains one of the most gender-segregated industries in the world. Increased knowledge about gender has been identified as needed to change the status quo. The aim of this study is to contribute with new insights into gender in construction by exploring how women in the industry are discursively represented, and how they talk about their workplace. It is based on analyses of texts from the web. The search engine WebCorpLive was used to retrieve and sort the material to enable linguistic analysis. The study shows that although the overarching message in the material is that there are many opportunities for women in the industry, closer analysis of it shows that women entering the industry are met with gender-biased attitudes, discrimination and unrealistic demands.

Trots att många insatser genomförs är fortfarande anställda på byggarbetsplatser överrepresenterade i arbetsskadestatistiken. Avhandlingens övergripande syfte är att bidra till kunskap om varför byggarbetsplatser fortsätter att drabbas av en hög andel arbetsskador. Det görs genom att undersöka hur byggarbetare och platschefer tolkar och förstår arbetsmiljö och säkerhet på byggarbetsplatser samt hur arbetsmiljöchefer, arbetsgivar- och arbetstagarparter, företagshälsor och en arbetsmiljöinspektör tänker och resonerar om densamma. Byggbranschen har en lång tradition av samarbete med företagshälsor. Detta samarbete formades inom den dåtida Bygghälsan som, vilket ett av resultaten pekar på, fanns nära det praktiska arbetet och sågs som kompetenta partners i arbetsmiljö- och säkerhetsarbetet. Efter Bygghälsans nedläggning har byggbranschens samarbete med företagshälsor fortsatt, men nu med ett flertal aktörer.

Forskningen har en kvalitativ ansats och delades upp i tre delstudier. Den första delstudien, ”Litteraturstudien” var en litteraturöversikt baserad på vetenskapliga artiklar om risker och säkerhetsarbete i byggbranschen. Inom den andra delstudien ”Intervjustudien”, genomfördes 22 semistrukturerade intervjuer med aktörer kopplade till arbetsmiljön och säkerheten på svenska byggarbetsplatser. Den tredje delstudien, ”Korpusstudien”, utgjordes av analyser av internettexter i en undersökning om språket som används om kvinnor i byggbranschen. De forskningsfrågor som har varit vägledande är: Vilka utmaningar avseende arbetsmiljö och säkerhet beskrivs och vad ses som lösningar på dessa? Hur omsätts arbetsmiljö och säkerhet i praktiken på byggarbetsplatser av byggarbetare och platschefer? Vilken roll har praktikgemenskaper för både motstånd och förbättringar i arbetsmiljö och säkerhet? Vilken betydelse har machokultur för motstånd mot förändring och förbättringar i arbetsmiljö och säkerhet? De teoretiska fälten utgörs av hur nya medlemmar socialiseras in i existerande normer och värderingar inom praktikgemenskaper där de lär sig att göra sina arbetsuppgifter samt hur byggarbetsplatser genomsyras av könade processer.

Ett resultat är att resonemang om möjliga lösningar på brister i arbetsmiljö och säkerhet tenderar att cirkulera tillbaka till att individen (byggarbetaren) borde ha ett större eget ansvar för att agera i enlighet med regler och riktlinjer för arbetsmiljö och säkerhet. De intervjuade byggarbetarna följer inte alltid säkerhetsrutinerna och en av utmaningarna är att det upplevs svårt för dem att genomföra de förändringar i säkerhetsbeteende som efterfrågas. Istället lyfts förhoppningar om att de kvinnor som förväntas anställas kommer att bidra till god arbetsmiljö och säkerhet. Ett annat resultat är att avståndet mellan företagshälsorna och det praktiska arbetet på byggarbetsplatserna har ökat och att företagshälsorna inte deltar i byggarbetsplatsernas praktikgemenskaper. Det tyder på att deras möjligheter att bidra till arbetsmiljö och säkerhet på byggarbetsplatserna är lägre nu än tidigare. Det är främst företagshälsors kompetens avseende både arbetsmiljö och säkerhet på byggarbetsplatser, samt arbetet som genomförs på byggarbetsplatser mer generellt som ifrågasätts vilket leder till vad som beskrivs som en brist på tillit. Det kan leda till att byggarbetsplatserna går miste om kompetens inom arbetsmiljö- och säkerhetsområdet. Ett resultat indikerar att machokulturen stabiliseras och återskapas genom att arbetet tenderar att utföras på samma sätt som tidigare och det skapar utmaningar för individer att välja andra uttryck för maskulinitet. Samtidigt reproduceras idealen om den kapable byggarbetaren, mannen, som under alla omständigheter kommer se till att arbetet blir genomfört på utsatt tid i praktikgemenskaper vilket skapar motstånd mot förändring, även om det inte är varje individs önskan.

Den övergripande slutsatsen är att det är svårt att genomföra förändringar som leder till god arbetsmiljö och säkerhet om för mycket ansvar läggs på enskilda byggarbetare. Det är viktigt att komma närmare praktiken där arbetet utförs för att förstå vad som händer i praktikgemenskaperna på byggarbetsplatserna, samt att rikta mer uppmärksamhet till att förändra hur arbetet organiseras.

Denna rapport är en kunskapsöversikt som beskriver internationell forskning om säkerhetskultur och säkerhetsarbete i byggindustrin. I rapporten diskuteras inledningsvis hur säkerhetskultur kan förstås i relation till organisationskultur och att mycket av de distinktioner som görs inom säkerhetskulturforskningen inom byggbranschen är avhängig synen på kulturbegreppet. I den forskning som studerats i denna litteraturöversikt är det vanligt med en mer normativ ansats, dvs., den är inte neutral utan den syftar till säkerhet. Det verkar inte vara lika vanligt med säkerhetskultur-forskning som i grunden har en tolkande ansats och som ställer sig mer neutral till huruvida kulturen i sig alltid leder till en högre grad av säkerhet. Med en sådan ansats kan dock säkerhetskulturens olika delar i högre grad analyseras utan att vara upptagen med dess koppling till en normativ syn på säkerhetskultur. Med utgångpunkt i den tidigare forskningen ger vi slutligen förslag på ett antal aktiviteter som skulle kunna införlivas i säkerhetsparken som ett sätt att stärka dess säkerhetsfrämjande arbete.

This article addresses how women forestry professionals articulate and interpret their experiences of being a woman and a professional in the male‐dominated context of forestry. The findings suggest that the entrance of women into forestry has created openings as well as restraints within the dominant discourses of forestry organizations. Gendered constructions of skills and a workplace culture described as built on homosocial values cause women to feel questioned and disadvantaged. At the same time, women are valued for their perceived capacity to perform relational‐based aspects of forestry work and as a means to reduce gender segregation. We conclude that while these openings are conditioned by discourses of gender differences and masculine privileges, they provide women, to some extent, with subjectivity and organizational space that, with time, may challenge the dominant and gendered discourses of forestry organizations.

BACKGROUND:

From the 1960s until the beginning of the 1990s, the construction industry in Sweden received support for health and safety issues from Bygghälsan, an Occupational Health Service (OHS) that targeted the construction industry. In the 1990s, a reorganization of the OHS changed the relations between the actors involved.

OBJECTIVES:

This study explores these changed relations between the construction industry and the “old” industry-specific Bygghälsan versus the relations with “new” external OHS.

METHODS:

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 22 interviewees from the construction industry and individuals involved in OHS which were transcribed and analyzed.

RESULTS:

The results suggest that OHS have changed towards a more general character instead of tailor-made services which has had a negative effect on the relations. Further, Bygghälsan was perceived as being a part of the construction industry while contemporary OHS providers were perceived as outsiders which further complicates building trustful relations.

CONCLUSIONS:

The relation between the construction industry and Bygghälsan was perceived as better compared to the relations with the new companies providing external OHS. The main barrier to building better relations is the perception that contemporary OHS do not have the same knowledge about the construction industry as Bygghälsan.

BACKGROUND

The paper is a research review focusing on occupational safety in the construction industry.

OBJECTIVE

The purpose is to present research that highlights the areas of occupational safety and risks and to identify areas where research is lacking.

METHODS

326 articles from scientific journals, mainly covering the construction industry in Europe, Canada, USA, Australia and Japan have been studied. The findings are presented under 11 categories: accident statistics; individual factors; legislation and regulations; ethical considerations; risk management; leadership, management, organization; competence; safety design; cost-benefit calculations; programs and models; and technical solutions.

RESULTS

The research is dominated by initiatives from researchers and government authorities, while the construction industry only appears as the object for the research. There is a scarcity of research on integrated systems encompassing subcontractors, as well as a lack of research with sociological perspectives on accidents. Furthermore, only a few studies have applied a gender perspective on safety in construction, i.e. there is a need of further research in this particular area.

CONCLUSIONS

A range of initiatives have been taken to increase safety in the construction industry and the initiatives are mainly reported to be successful. There are some cultural differences, but basically researchers present similar results regardless of country.