The Moderating Roles of Safety Communication on the Relationship between Safety Practices and Safety Performance in Nigeria Construction Companies

Abstract

When compared to other industries, the construction business has a higher workplace death rate. In addition, achieving zero accidents requires substantial effort. This study therefore aims to investigate how safety communication influences the relationship between key safety practices and safety performance in Nigeria construction companies. Safety management involvement, risk perception, safety training, safety culture, and safety motivation as the key safety practices considered in this study are to be moderated by safety communication respectively with respects to safety performance. Questionnaires were distributed to Nigerian construction employees from the selected construction companies located in Lagos state, Nigeria using simple random and convenience sampling while structural equation modelling was employed as the analysis technique. The results showed that, perceived management commitment, safety training, safety motivation and risk perception have direct significant relationship with safety performance with the exception of safety culture. However, the study revealed that safety communication moderates the relationship between safety motivation only from all the safety practices and safety performance. By highlighting the importance of safety communication for any effective and strategic implementation in improving safety performance through the deployment of the considered safety practices, the tenets of the behavior-based safety (BBS) theory are validated.