Impact of organisational characteristics on health and safety practices of construction contractors

Abstract

The construction industry makes a contribution to occupational accidents and ill health records in Nigeria. This study was designed to evaluate the impact of organisational characteristics on health and safety (H&S) management practices of Nigerian small and medium-sized construction enterprises (SMEs). The study employed a survey using questionnaires with both closed and open-ended questions which were used to examine the significance and incidences of H&S practices of construction. The questionnaire was presented to 436 SMEs which were randomly sampled from the 2219 construction contractors contained in the list of construction contractors registered with Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) in Abuja. Factor analysis was employed to reduce 46 important H&S practices identified to 8 major H&S practices used for further analysis. The use of hierarchical multiple regression analysis was finally employed to establish the relationship between organisational characteristics and H&S practices of the construction SMEs. It was established that all the organisational characteristics have significant relationship with the H&S practices. It was concluded that the organisational characteristics are good predictors of the H&S practices of the construction SMEs.Keywords: Health and Safety, Impact, Organisational Characteristics, Practices