Dual Mediation Mechanisms of Ownership Climate on Safety Behavior in Construction Workers: Evidence from China
Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Literature Review and Research Hypothesis
2.1. Ownership Climate and Safety Behavior
2.2. The Mediating Effect of Team Building
2.3. The Mediating Effect of Risk Perception
2.4. The Hypothetical Model
- (1)
- Direct path: Ownership climate→Safety behaviors (H1).
- (2)
- Mediation pathways: Ownership climate→Team building→Safety behaviors (H2a→H2b).
- (3)
- Mediation pathways: Ownership climate→Risk perception→Safety behaviors (H3a→H3b).
3. Research Design
3.1. Sample Selection and Data Sources
- (1)
- Real-Name Verification: Contractors’ safety departments distributed questionnaires exclusively to registered on-site workers via their mandatory safety training portals with IP/MAC address tracking to prevent duplicate submissions.
- (2)
- Anonymity Protocol: Emphasized data decoupling from personal identifiers during pre-survey briefings, adopting the anonymity assurance framework.
- (1)
- Automated consistency checks (e.g., contradictory responses to “work experience” vs. “age”);
- (2)
- Pattern detection using Cronbach’s alpha > 0.7 threshold for scale reliability;
- (3)
- Manual review of open-ended comments for engagement authenticity.
3.2. Measurement
- (1)
- Translation and Back-Translation: Bilingual experts independently translated the original English items into Chinese, which was followed by blind back-translation to ensure conceptual equivalence. Discrepancies were resolved through iterative discussions.
- (2)
- Expert Review: A panel of three safety management professors and two senior project managers evaluated item clarity and cultural relevance, refining wording to align with Chinese construction workers’ cognitive schemata.
- (3)
- Scale Design: A 5-point Likert scale (1 = “Strongly Disagree” to 5 = “Strongly Agree”) was employed.
3.2.1. Ownership Climate Scale
3.2.2. Team Building Scale
3.2.3. Risk Perception Scale
3.2.4. Safety Behavior Scale
4. Data Analysis and Results
4.1. Common Method Variance
4.2. Construct Validity and Correlations
4.3. Hypotheses Testing
4.3.1. Main Effect Test
4.3.2. Mediating Effect Test
5. Discussion
5.1. Major Findings
5.1.1. Influence of Ownership Climate on Safety Behavior
5.1.2. The Mediating Effect of Team Building
5.1.3. The Mediating Effect of Risk Perception
5.2. Limitations and Future Research
6. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Variable | Category | Number | % |
---|---|---|---|
Gender | Male | 264 | 84.6 |
Female | 48 | 15.4 | |
Age(years) | ≤20 | 6 | 1.9 |
21–30 | 89 | 28.5 | |
31–40 | 139 | 44.6 | |
41–50 | 68 | 21.8 | |
≥51 | 10 | 3.2 | |
Education | Primary school and below | 19 | 6.1 |
Junior high school and below | 77 | 24.7 | |
Senior high school (vocational high school) | 113 | 36.2 | |
College degree and above | 103 | 33.0 | |
Work experience(years) | ≤5 | 102 | 32.7 |
6–10 | 123 | 39.4 | |
11–15 | 56 | 17.9 | |
16–20 | 17 | 5.4 | |
≥21 | 14 | 4.5 | |
Job type | Skilled worker | 272 | 87.2 |
Unskilled worker (laborer) | 40 | 12.8 |
Model | Fit Indices | χ2/df | CFI | GFI | AGFI | RMSEA | SRMR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Fit Criteria | <5 | >0.9 | >0.8 | >0.8 | <0.08 | <0.05 | |
Four factor | OC; TB; RP; SB | 1.261 | 0.957 | 0.845 | 0.829 | 0.029 | 0.047 |
Three factor | OC; TB + RP; SB | 1.582 | 0.903 | 0.798 | 0.778 | 0.043 | 0.058 |
Two factor | OC; TB + RP + SB | 1.621 | 0.897 | 0.791 | 0.771 | 0.045 | 0.065 |
One factor | OC + TB + RP + SB | 1.875 | 0.854 | 0.750 | 0.726 | 0.053 | 0.076 |
Variable | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | CR | AVE |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1. OC | 0.710 | — | — | — | 0.965 | 0.503 |
2. TB | 0.418 ** | 0.745 | — | — | 0.833 | 0.556 |
3. RP | 0.500 ** | 0.385 ** | 0.708 | — | 0.875 | 0.502 |
4. SB | 0.509 ** | 0.440 ** | 0.495 ** | 0.709 | 0.917 | 0.503 |
Mean value | 4.092 | 4.103 | 4.266 | 4.207 | — | — |
Standard deviation | 0.418 | 0.488 | 0.453 | 0.397 | — | — |
Effect Type | Mediating Pathway | 95% Confidence Interval | Effect Size/% | Hypothesis | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Estimate | Standard Error | Lower | Upper | p | ||||
Direct Effect | OC→SB | 0.394 | 0.095 | 0.205 | 0.579 | 0.000 | 54.50 | H1: Supported |
Indirect Effect | — | 0.329 | 0.069 | 0.198 | 0.470 | 0.000 | 45.50 | — |
Mediating Effect | OC→TB→SB | 0.132 | 0.045 | 0.046 | 0.224 | 0.003 | 18.26 | H2: Supported |
OC→RP→SB | 0.197 | 0.058 | 0.097 | 0.326 | 0.000 | 27.24 | H3: Supported | |
Total Effect | — | 0.723 | 0.064 | 0.587 | 0.834 | 0.000 | 100.00 | — |
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Fu, C.; Tan, J. Dual Mediation Mechanisms of Ownership Climate on Safety Behavior in Construction Workers: Evidence from China. Sustainability 2025, 17, 4220. https://doi.org/10.3390/su17094220
Fu C, Tan J. Dual Mediation Mechanisms of Ownership Climate on Safety Behavior in Construction Workers: Evidence from China. Sustainability. 2025; 17(9):4220. https://doi.org/10.3390/su17094220
Chicago/Turabian StyleFu, Chun, and Jialing Tan. 2025. "Dual Mediation Mechanisms of Ownership Climate on Safety Behavior in Construction Workers: Evidence from China" Sustainability 17, no. 9: 4220. https://doi.org/10.3390/su17094220
APA StyleFu, C., & Tan, J. (2025). Dual Mediation Mechanisms of Ownership Climate on Safety Behavior in Construction Workers: Evidence from China. Sustainability, 17(9), 4220. https://doi.org/10.3390/su17094220