The Environmental, Organizational and Individual Factors Contributing to Unsafe Situations at Workplace: A Case Study on Housing Construction Industry in Bangladesh

Mohammad Fazley Hossain, Chowdhury (2020) The Environmental, Organizational and Individual Factors Contributing to Unsafe Situations at Workplace: A Case Study on Housing Construction Industry in Bangladesh. PhD thesis, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS).

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Abstract

This study explores the environmental, organizational, and individual factors that contribute to unsafe situations as well as how they contribute to workplaces in Bangladesh housing construction industry. The construction industry is important to Bangladesh’s economy, yet remains as risky due to its frequency and magnitude of accidents. However, the understanding of an unsafe situation, particularly in the housing construction industry is mostly confined to compliance, labor force’s skill and application of PPE. Therefore, to obtain a comprehensive understanding, the study adopts a case study design and obtains data through the in-depth interview with fifteen purposely sampled individuals who are directly and indirectly connected with the housing construction industry in the sample location of Dhaka city. The study used thematic analysis with predefined themes from the Open System Theory to explore the factors and finds sixteen factors contributing to unsafe situations.In contributing to unsafe situations, four organizational factors emerge as well: cost guided process decisions, inappropriate administration of incentives, Inefficient project management and lack of practice of learning in the organization. Besides, perceived acculturative challenges, a dire need for money generation and safety adverse group norms are explored as the individual factors contributing to unsafe situations. The study also used narrative analysis to explore how these factors contribute to unsafe situations and present three scenarios to depict how they contribute. These findings address the present knowledge gap, therefore, enhance the present understanding of unsafe situations at workplaces in Bangladesh housing construction industry. These findings also facilitate in formulating and in taking appropriate initiatives at the environmental, organizational and individual levels to protect the workplaces from unsafe situations.

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