A constructionist examination of construction site culture: Review of a pilot study

Recent developments in the UK construction industry have led to behavioural and cultural safety programmes becoming a key tool in the prevention of health and safety incidents on construction sites for major contractors. However, the synchronicity of these programmes with the established UK construction site culture can be challenged, and indeed the success of these change programmes has yet to be proven. An on-going PhD study to investigate how safety is placed and embedded within the culture of UK construction sites, including a review of the impact of these cultural change programmes, has recently completed a pilot study. The pilot used photography and unstructured interviews to produce a rich variety of data, which could be examined from a social constructionist epistemological stance using discourse analysis. This analysis suggested that there were areas of potential conflict with the dominant construction site culture and the behavioural and cultural change programmes, as well as friction between the form and direction of the discourses used within the programmes and those found to be more prevalent on sites. Evaluation of the pilot study suggested the methods employed had the potential to productively address the issues surrounding site safety culture.