National culture and safe work behaviour of construction workers in Pakistan

It is widely accepted that unsafe behaviour is intrinsically linked to workplace accidents. A positive correlation exists between workers' safe behaviour kind safety climate oil construction sites. Construction workers' attitude towards safety is influenced by their perception of risk, management, safety rules and procedures. Pakistan, a developing country, is currently experiencing a strong growth ill its construction activities. Unfortunately, the enforcement of safety regulations in Pakistan is not widespread. Indeed, some relevant regulations are both outdated and irrelevant to daily construction operations. This paper investigates local construction workers' behaviour, perception and attitude toward safety, and attempts to link the research findings to the influence of national culture, A three-part interview-based questionnaire survey has identified that the majority of workers have it good degree of risk awareness and self-rated competence. Additionally, workers' intentional behaviour wits empirically explained by their attitudes towards their own and management's safety responsibilities, as well as their perception of the risk they are generally exposed to in their workplace. The paper also reveals that workers operating ill a more collective and higher uncertainty avoidance environment, are more likely to have safety awareness and beliefs, which can exhibit safer oil-site behaviour. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.