Prospective safety performance evaluation on construction sites

• A systematic Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach for safety performance evaluation is developed.
• A prospective safety performance evaluation model is established and verified through goodness-of-fit test.
• Differences in safety performance level regarding different construction enterprise categories are compared.
• Results provide insights into cause–effect relationships among safety performance factors and goals in China.

This paper presents a systematic Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) based approach for Prospective Safety Performance Evaluation (PSPE) on construction sites, with causal relationships and interactions between enablers and the goals of PSPE taken into account. According to a sample of 450 valid questionnaire surveys from 30 Chinese construction enterprises, a SEM model with 26 items included for PSPE in the context of Chinese construction industry is established and then verified through the goodness-of-fit test. Three typical types of construction enterprises, namely the state-owned enterprise, private enterprise and Sino-foreign joint venture, are selected as samples to measure the level of safety performance given the enterprise scale, ownership and business strategy are different. Results provide a full understanding of safety performance practice in the construction industry, and indicate that the level of overall safety performance situation on working sites is rated at least a level of III (Fair) or above. This phenomenon can be explained that the construction industry has gradually matured with the norms, and construction enterprises should improve the level of safety performance as not to be eliminated from the government-led construction industry. The differences existing in the safety performance practice regarding different construction enterprise categories are compared and analyzed according to evaluation results. This research provides insights into cause–effect relationships among safety performance factors and goals, which, in turn, can facilitate the improvement of high safety performance in the construction industry.

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