Skills for managing safety risk, implementing safety task, and developing positive safety climate in construction project

The aim of this research is to understand what skills project management team should develop in order to manage construction safety risks, implement safety tasks, and develop safety climate. A review on current literature was conducted to develop a hypothetical skill model. Structural equation modelling method was used to test the hypotheses and develop the skill model. The results supported the research hypotheses by showing that the skill components positively influence safety management task implementation and safety climate development. The results further revealed that self-awareness, visioning, and apparent sincerity are the foundation skills and precursors of scoping and integration and self-management, which are the first-tier mediator skills. The second tier mediator skills include social awareness, social astuteness, and relationship management. It is suggested that construction organisations incorporate the training of these skills in their human resource development programs and that tertiary education institutions consider these skills in their construction management related curriculum. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.