Analyzing the impact of group norms on workers’ safety behaviors in a construction team

Abstract

The construction industry is universally accepted as one of the most dangerous industries. Workers’ unsafe act is one of the main causes of construction accidents. And group norms are widely regarded as important roles in regulating safety behaviors. According to the social identity theory, research on group norms of construction teams seems to be more important. Group norms can be divided into injunctive and descriptive norms. However, there are limited studies how injunctive and descriptive norms influence workers’ safety behaviors and the mechanism in construction teams. This study aims to build and test a mediation model about how workers’ safety behaviors are affected by these norms. The empirical data were collected from different construction sites and analyzed by the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) technique. Results reveal that injunctive and descriptive norms have both a direct and an indirect influence on workers’ safety behaviors. And safety attitude serves as the mediating factor. This study supports a better understanding on how safety behaviors are affected by group norms from the perspective of sociological classification in construction teams.