Relational approach in managing construction project safety: a social capital perspective

Existing initiatives in the management of construction project safety are largely based on normative compliance and error prevention, a risk management approach. Although advantageous, these approaches are not wholly successful in further lowering accident rates. A major limitation lies with the approaches' lack of emphasis on the social and team processes inherent in construction project settings. We advance the enquiry by invoking the concept of social capital and project organisational processes, and their impacts on project safety performance. Because social capital is a primordial concept and affects project participants' interactions, its impact on project safety performance is hypothesised to be indirect, i.e. the impact of social capital on safety performance is mediated by organisational processes in adaptation and cooperation. A questionnaire survey was conducted within Hong Kong construction industry to test the hypotheses. 376 usable responses were received and used for analyses. The results reveal that, while the structural dimension is not significant, the mediational thesis is generally supported with the cognitive and relational dimensions affecting project participants' adaptation and cooperation, and the latter two processes affect safety performance. However, the cognitive dimension also directly affects safety performance. The implications of these results for project safety management are discussed.postprin

Avian Influenza: a global threat needing a global solution

There have been three influenza pandemics since the 1900s, of which the 1919–1919 flu pandemic had the highest mortality rates. The influenza virus infects both humans and birds, and mutates using two mechanisms: antigenic drift and antigenic shift. Currently, the H5N1 avian flu virus is limited to outbreaks among poultry and persons in direct contact to infected poultry, but the mortality rate among infected humans is high. Avian influenza (AI) is endemic in Asia as a result of unregulated poultry rearing in rural areas. Such birds often live in close proximity to humans and this increases the chance of genetic re-assortment between avian and human influenza viruses which may produce a mutant strain that is easily transmitted between humans. Once this happens, a global pandemic is likely. Unlike SARS, a person with influenza infection is contagious before the onset of case-defining symptoms which limits the effectiveness of case isolation as a control strategy. Researchers have shown that carefully orchestrated of public health measures could potentially limit the spread of an AI pandemic if implemented soon after the first cases appear. To successfully contain and control an AI pandemic, both national and global strategies are needed. National strategies include source surveillance and control, adequate stockpiles of anti-viral agents, timely production of flu vaccines and healthcare system readiness. Global strategies such as early integrated response, curbing the disease outbreak at source, utilization of global resources, continuing research and open communication are also critical

Stakeholder management through relationship management

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Treatment and removal strategies for estrogens from wastewater

Natural and synthetic steroidal estrogens (estrone, 17β-estradiol and 17α-ethinylestradiol) are endocrine disrupters, that are discharged consistently from the sewage treatment works into surface waters, thereby causing endocrine disrupting effects to aquatic organisms at trace concentrations (nanogram per litre). Several years of research have been focused on their fate, behaviour and removal in the environment but primarily in the sewage treatment works which acts as a sink for these compounds. This review attempts to summarize the factors involved in the removal of these chemicals from the sewage treatment works. Biological processes, and to a limited extent physio-chemical properties, play a vital role in the endocrinal deactivation of which these compounds. The efficiency of these processes is highly dependent on operating parameters (such as sludge retention time, redox potential, etc) that govern the secondary treatment process of a functional sewage treatment works. Although advanced treatment technologies are available, cost and operational considerations do not make them a sustainable solution

A review of safety climate and risk-taking propensity in occupational health, safety and well-being in the construction industry

Conference Theme: Greening Environment, Eco Innovations & EntrepreneurshipStudies which take safety climate as a safety monitoring tool are rarely reported. This study reports a benchmarking program to identify prominent safety management issues in three ongoing railway projects using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. In the quantitative aspect, the research team conducted a safety climate survey with three random samples, one sample from each ongoing project. A robust 11-factor structure of the safety climate questionnaire emerged after factor analysis. Most of the mean scores of safety climate indicators for subcontractors were below 3 (out of 4) and specific indicators were identified as in need of urgent attention. The main contractor's direct labour scored similarly with subcontractors. Two main contractor management teams had to do more to take on the leadership role. The major weaknesses were the following indicators: work procedure for safety, safety compliance, safety priority over work pressure, safety cooperation and involvement, and appreciation of risk. In the qualitative aspect, the research team sought respondents' comments on current safety management practice and suggestions as to further improvement in safety performance. Content analysis showed that conflicting safety rules and inadequate training were common in the three projects, and increased supervision was proposed as the way to improve safety performance.postprin

Relational pluralism in project settings: towards a research agenda

Conference Theme: Research to PracticeConstruction projects are characteristically complex undertakings whose successful realization requires the engagement of a myriad of individuals, teams and organisations. Projects therefore provide a platform for the emergence of multiplex (i.e. entities having more than one type of relationship), heterogeneous (i.e. entities connected to others from different backgrounds) and overlapping (i.e. entities belonging to clusters or spanning boundaries) relationships. This notion of the existence of relational pluralism in projects has implications for project constituents and project delivery. For individuals, it is how to grapple with multiple and conflicting identities in achieving outcomes. For teams, it is how to grapple with multiple types of inter-team relations and still maintain harmony to achieve goals, and for organisations, it is how to deal with the multiplicity of relationships among individuals and teams and still achieve goal congruence. This paper draws on social identity theory, social network theory and social capital, and their complementarity to explicitly examine the presence of multiplex, heterogeneous and overlapping relationships in projects and explain how relational pluralism can be exploited to facilitate effective project delivery. We further highlight the research avenues relational pluralism presents in project settings and examine the methodological implications of such research agendas.postprin

A relational approach to high reliability organising for construction project safety: a conceptual framework

In Hong Kong, current safety management regimes in the construction industry are largely based on compliance, error detection and prevention, and safety climate intervention. While these approaches have improved construction project safety performance, significant limitations still exist. First, compliance and error detection/prevention approaches are based on rigid and ideal formulations of construction work processes. Second, safety climate interventionist approaches have a limitation of mixing psychological and human factors issues that are somehow detached from construction work contextual consideration. As a result, current safety management approaches are less effective in ensuring safety in construction operations which are emergent and dynamically complex. These situations require adaptive human inputs and interactions to ensure safety on projects that are grounded in the social capital among project team members. However, as social capital is a primordial feature of human interactions that is likely to lie dormant, its impact on safety performance is likely to be indirect and mediated by some organising processes such as high reliability organising (HRO) processes. Adopting the systems view of safety, we draw on these concepts to highlight the relational aspects in the management of construction project safety, and explain how these relational aspects can contribute to improving project safety. We accomplish these objectives by putting forth a conceptual framework and methodological suggestion.postprin

Social capital and construction project management: a vignette and theoretical framework

Conference Theme: Research to PracticeExtant discourse of organizational social capital has been concentrated on permanent organizational settings. The basic tenet of the concept of social capital is that the social relations of actors within social sphere can be used to facilitate actions among the focal actors and those others that are directly or indirectly associated with the focal actors. This utilitarian notion of the concept should transcend organizational settings. In this respect, although paradoxical, with the construction project peculiarities of fragmentation, the lack of a central authority, transient organizing, interdependence and the resultant need for integration, and relative closure, social capital may be more relevant to project organizing. However, given that social capital represents the primordial feature of social activities among actors and its utility is contingent upon active use and engagement, the effects of social capital on project organizing is likely to be channeled through project organizational processes. We examined this proposition with the use of a vignette derived from case study of a building construction project in Hong Kong. Through the vignette, we demonstrate the applicability of the concept in construction project settings in relation to the proposition. Based on the findings, we put forth a theoretical framework of the social embeddedness approach to project organizing.postprin

Noncommutative generalizations of theorems of Cohen and Kaplansky

This paper investigates situations where a property of a ring can be tested on a set of "prime right ideals." Generalizing theorems of Cohen and Kaplansky, we show that every right ideal of a ring is finitely generated (resp. principal) iff every "prime right ideal" is finitely generated (resp. principal), where the phrase "prime right ideal" can be interpreted in one of many different ways. We also use our methods to show that other properties can be tested on special sets of right ideals, such as the right artinian property and various homological properties. Applying these methods, we prove the following noncommutative generalization of a result of Kaplansky: a (left and right) noetherian ring is a principal right ideal ring iff all of its maximal right ideals are principal. A counterexample shows that the left noetherian hypothesis cannot be dropped. Finally, we compare our results to earlier generalizations of Cohen's and Kaplansky's theorems in the literature.Comment: 41 pages. To appear in Algebras and Representation Theory. Minor changes were made to the numbering system, in order to remain consistent with the published versio

Diabetes and other vascular risk factors in association with the risk of lower extremity amputation in chronic limb-threatening ischemia: a prospective cohort study

BACKGROUND: Patients with diabetes are at increased risk of developing chronic limb-threatening ischemia (CLTI) due to peripheral arterial disease, and this often results in lower extremity amputation (LEA). Little is known of the interaction between diabetes and other vascular risk factors in affecting the risk of CLTI. METHODS: We investigated the association of diabetes, and its interaction with hypertension, body mass index (BMI) and smoking, with the risk of LEA due to CLTI in the population-based Singapore Chinese Health Study. Participants were interviewed at recruitment (1993-1998) and 656 incident LEA cases were identified via linkage with nationwide hospital database through 2017. Multivariate-adjusted Cox proportional hazards models were used to compute hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% CIs for the associations. RESULTS: The HR (95% CI) for LEA risk was 13.41 (11.38-15.79) in participants with diabetes compared to their counterparts without diabetes, and the risk increased in a stepwise manner with duration of diabetes (P for trend < 0.0001). Hypertension and increased BMI independently increased LEA risk in those without diabetes but did not increase the risk in those with diabetes (P for interaction with diabetes ≤ 0.0006). Conversely, current smoking conferred a risk increment of about 40% regardless of diabetes status. CONCLUSIONS: Although diabetes conferred more than tenfold increase in risk of LEA, hypertension and increased BMI did not further increase LEA risk among those with diabetes, suggesting a common mechanistic pathway for these risk factors. In contrast, smoking may act via an alternative pathway and thus confer additional risk regardless of diabetes status