This study aims to empirically analyze the structural pathways of effects through which the safety and health roles of construction project owners influence on-site safety and health management, focusing on construction projects commissioned by govern...
This study aims to empirically analyze the structural pathways of effects through which the safety and health roles of construction project owners influence on-site safety and health management, focusing on construction projects commissioned by government public institutions. With the institutionalization of owners’ safety and health obligations under the Occupational Safety and Health Act, public institutions are increasingly required to fulfill their safety management responsibilities as construction project owners.
However, empirical evidence remains limited regarding how owners’ safety and health roles are carried out at each construction stage and through what pathways and structural mechanisms these roles affect the level of on-site safety and health management. As a result, in practice, such roles have often been implemented in a largely formal manner. In response to this limitation, this study classifies and clarifies owners’ safety and health roles by construction stage and examines the structural pathways through which these roles exert effects on on-site safety and health management, thereby providing empirical evidence to support the substantive implementation of owners’ responsibilities.
The analysis utilizes evaluation data from construction projects commissioned by public institutions, obtained from the government-administered Safety Activity Level Evaluation for Public Institutions. Construction project owners’ safety and health roles are categorized into establishment of a safety and health management system, planning-stage activities, design-stage activities, and construction-stage activities. The level of on-site safety and health management is operationalized through the formation of a safety and health work environment and the implementation of safety and health measures. After verifying the reliability and validity of the measurement instruments, structural equation modeling (SEM) is applied to examine the direct effects and mediating effects of owners’ stage-specific safety and health roles on on-site safety and health management.
Correlation analysis showed that safety and health activities in the planning and design stages were associated to a certain extent with the level of on-site safety and health management. However, the analysis of direct and indirect effects revealed a different pattern. The establishment of the client’s safety and health management system and safety and health activities carried out during the construction stage emerged as the key factors exerting statistically significant direct effects on both the formation of the on-site safety and health environment and the level of safety and health measures implemented at construction sites. In contrast, safety and health activities in the planning and design stages did not demonstrate statistically significant effects. These findings suggest that the client’s role in safety and health becomes concrete at the site level through execution during the construction stage, based on an established management system.
The vulnerability analysis further showed that many sub-items related to safety and health activities in the planning and design stages fell below the reference mean or displayed variations among institutions, and that some activities were implemented in a largely formalistic manner. This limited level of implementation helps explain why planning- and design-stage activities did not exhibit statistically significant direct or indirect effects on on-site safety and health management in the impact structure analysis.
In conclusion, construction project owners’ safety and health activities are organized within an interconnected structure spanning all stages of construction projects. Nevertheless, the primary pathways that exert substantive effects on on-site safety and health management are centered on the establishment of a safety and health management system and the execution of safety and health activities during the construction stage.
Keyword : Construction Project Owners, Safety and Health Roles, On-Site Safety and Health Management, Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), Primary Pathways