TITLE:
The Social Support: A Missing Link between Safety Management Practices and Safety Behaviour of Foreign Construction Workers in Saudi Arabia
AUTHORS:
Bassem Alfayez
KEYWORDS:
Safety Behaviour, Work Pressure, Social Support, Foreign Workers, Construction Industry
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Business and Management,
Vol.9 No.3,
April
7,
2021
ABSTRACT: Organizational injuries and accident has become a major issue in many
countries especially among foreign workers in the construction sector. This
paper aims to examine the safety behavior of foreign workers in the Jeddah
construction industry by examining the direct relationships between safety
management practices (priority of safety, safety communication, and work
pressure) on safety compliance and safety participative behavior. Also, social
support was tested as a moderator on these relationships. Partial Least Square
Techniques 3.0 (PLS) approach was used to test the hypotheses. The finding
showed that the priority of safety and safety communication predicts both
safety compliance and participative behavior in this study. While the
relationships between work pressure and safety compliance and participation are
not significant. Results for the moderation effects of social support revealed
that the relationship between safety communication and work pressure on safety
participation was influenced by social support. The finding in this study
provides empirical support of social support as a moderator and contributes to
the role of social exchange theory and can assist construction practitioners in
Saudi Arabia on how to improve construction workers safety behavior. Finally,
this study discusses theoretical and practical implications, as well as
recommendations for future research.