Another paper from some of my favourite authors (Matt Hallowell & team).
This identified the diffusion of different safety innovations across 58 US construction firms.
First, they found that project-specific training & safety meetings, worksite inspections, & inductions were the most frequently implemented practices. Further, the adoption rate of 12 common practices were found to drop off after 2005 with several firms indicating no plans to implement new safety innovations in the next decade.
Moreover, internal influences provided the most drive for the diffusion of safety strategies, rather than external (like the regulator).
However, most interestingly, the authors state that the findings suggest “the construction industry is saturated by the current safety innovations … which may explain the deceleration of construction safety improvement in the past two decades” (p961).
Also found was that once an innovation was introduced – no firm discontinued its use. In my view this speaks to the concept of safety clutter.
The authors conclude that “the construction industry has now reached saturation with respect to traditional injury prevention strategies and new safety innovations are needed” (p955).
Authors: Behzad Esmaeili, Matthew R. Hallowell, 2012, Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Link to study: https://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/%28ASCE%29CO.1943-7862.0000499
Link to the LinkedIn article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/diffusion-safety-innovations-construction-industry-ben-hutchinson
SafetyInsights.org 