Health and safety management practices of contractors in South East Asia: A multi country study of Cambodia, Vietnam, and Malaysia

Abstract

The construction sector is notorious for accounting for numerous occupational deaths, injuries and illnesses in many countries. In emerging economies this situation could be direr, and health and safety (H&S) management by contractors is important to tackling this. This study investigated the H&S management practices of contractors in three South East Asian countries (Malaysia, Vietnam, and Cambodia) with the view to highlighting implementation issues. A questionnaire instrument containing 40 H&S management practices was administered to contractors in the three countries. Analysis of the data revealed that in each of the three countries there are at least seven practices that are not commonly implemented by contractors. Whilst the study further suggests this to be acute in Malaysia and Cambodia, it also elucidates that the apparent situation could be due to inter alia: a significantly greater proportion of the contractors in the Malaysia sample being micro size firms; and also the effect of two national occupational H&S programmes implemented in Vietnam from 2006 to 2015. Overall, the findings offer an opportunity for contractors and key industry stakeholders (e.g. state authorities) to reflect on their approach/initiatives to improving H&S management in construction. Further studies which could offer additional empirical realities are also suggested.

Design for safety in construction in sub-Saharan Africa: a study of architects in Ghana

“…The groupings are as follows: (Smallwood, 2004;Sacks et al, 2015;Hayne et al, 2017). The size of respondent's firm was also considered in view of research evidence regarding the relationship between firm size and implementation of H&S practices (Kheni et al 2008;Manu et al, 2018).…”

“…Furthermore, based on the logic that more experienced design professionals would be more knowledgeable of DfS than younger professionals, it was expected from the ANOVA that years of experience would be associated with frequency of implementing DfS practice. Also, based on evidence in literature that smaller organisations are less likely to implement H&S practices as reported by Kheni et al (2008), Bonafede et al (2016) and Manu et al (2018), it was expected from the ANOVA that the size of respondents' organisation would be associated with frequency of involvement in DfS practice by the respondents. On the contrary, the ANOVA did not reflect either of both expectations.…”

Occupational safety and health management in developing countries: a study of construction companies in Malawi

“…The level of implementation of OSH management practices by the construction companies was assessed based on Manu et al [21] categorisation of the implementation levels, i.e., low implementation (i.e., where 0% to 49% of companies implement a practice), moderate implementation (i.e., where 50% to 59% of companies implement a practice) and high implementation (i.e., where over 70% of companies implement a practice). The procedure adopted for establishing the associations between business characteristics and the implementation of OSH management practices involved using Pearson's χ 2 test as employed by Kheni et al [20] and Manu et al [21]. The dependent variables (i.e., implementation of OSH management practices) were dichotomous yes or no and were defined as yes (i.e., implementation of OSH management practice) and no (i.e., non-implementation of OSH management practice).…”

“…The quantitative survey was used due to its suitability for obtaining a generalised view of a phenomenon [43], which in the case of this study is the OSH management practices of construction companies in Malawi. The survey strategy has also been used by previous studies that examined OSH management practices by construction companies in other developing countries [20,21]. This study targeted senior company management personnel such as directors, OSH managers and engineers as they are more likely to have good knowledge of their companies' safety and health management practices [21].…”

“…While an evaluation of the impact of the programme is yet to be released, a textual analysis of the programme reveals some potential inadequacies. For instance, the OSH programme lacks initiatives targeting micro, small and medium-sized firms (SMEs) which according to previous studies [e.g., 20,21] struggle with OSH management. Furthermore, the programme neither explicitly mentions OSH MSs nor providesdirection as to which elements and practices of OSH management need attention so that improvement efforts can be targeted at those elements and practices.…”