Influence of inadequate safety leadership on unsafe behavior: Evidence from fatal construction accidents

It has been widely recognized that higher and frontline management’s safety leadership significantly influences frontline workers’ safety behaviors. However, previous research has not adequately demonstrated the impact of inadequate safety leadership on unsafe behaviors. The dual role of frontline management is often overlooked, who not only supervise frontline workers but also engage in construction activities, serving as both safety leaders and followers. The study aims to understand the influence of inadequate safety leadership of higher and frontline management on unsafe behaviors of frontline workers and the impact of inadequate safety leadership of higher management on unsafe behaviors of frontline management. A multi-layer perceptron (MLP) classifier model was developed to predict the unsafe behaviors of frontline management and workers influenced by poor safety leadership of higher and frontline management based on 169 fatal accident investigation reports. To quantitatively evaluate the relative contribution of each input variable to the prediction of corresponding output variables, a sensitivity analysis utilizing Jacobian values was performed. Specifically, the lack of safety-oriented care by higher management is strongly associated with safety non-compliance related to personal protective equipment (PPE) among both frontline management and workers, while their inadequate safety coaching exerts a significant influence on operation-related non-compliance of workers. Among frontline management, ineffective role modeling, participative decision-making, safety guidance and communication are closely linked to workers’ PPE-related non-compliance, whereas insufficient safety communication and concern are salient predictors of operation-related non-compliance. Furthermore, senior managers’ inadequate safety coaching, alongside frontline leaders’ negative role modeling and insufficient safety concern, significantly related to workers’ inadequate participation in safety activities. In summary, this study comprehensively evaluated the influence of both higher and frontline management’ safety leadership on workers’ safety behaviors, thereby elucidating the distinct functions each managerial level fulfills. By integrating the safety behaviors of frontline management into the analytical framework, their dual responsibility within organizational safety practices is underscored.