Structures and Processes for Safety Culture? Perspectives from Safety Leaders in the Swedish Construction Industry

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This research investigated the structures and processes for safety culture in the Swedish construction industry. The topic is important while the paper quality needs to be improved before it can be published. 

(1) What are the structures and processes for the safety culture? why the authors investigated this topics considering there are lots of studies regarding the antecedents of safety culture. These questions could not be answered in this paper.

(2) The literature review is not complete and the literature on the structures and processes for the safety culture should be given considering this is not new topic in the safety areas.

(3) Only 20 interviews were conducted. How the authors could confirm that the sample is enough and representative

（4）There is a lack of the data analysis and processing 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

This quality of language need to be improved

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your discerning comments and please the attached document for our replies.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

The topic of the article is very important and current. There was a discussion on how safety leaders understand safety culture in the company. The research was based on statements of 20 survey participants. The presented research lacks statistical analysis of the research results. The lack of this element means that the scientific level of the reviewed article significantly differs from other articles on similar topics and published in the journal Safety. The article is a report of interviews conducted on the subject of safety culture. The number of interviews conducted is small and probably does not constitute a representative sample of the population of people involved in occupational safety in construction. The lack of any statistical analysis means that there are doubts about the reliability of the results. The article does not meet the requirements set by the journal Safety.
In my opinion, the possibility of publication in another journal should be considered.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your discerning comments and please see the attached document for our replies.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The research approach could be further justified. The implications of the sample chosen could be further discussed. The finding would lend themselves to the creation such as a mind map (just a suggestion). How health and safety integrates with other management aspects such as production planning could have been considered. Future areas of research built on this study could also have been suggested. Consideration on what are the different artifacts in different companies could have been considered. Construction is an industry of contractors and sub contractors the implications of this could have been considered. The unique nature of construction and the different types of construction could have been further elaborated.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your discerning comments and please see the attached document for our replies.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

• The authors should provide an in-depth review of the definitions and measurement approaches related to construction safety culture. The should focus on newer published work. Among others, the following peer-reviewed articles should be discussed:
  
  • Flin, R., Mearns, K., O'Connor, P., & Bryden, R. (2000). Measuring safety climate: identifying the common features. Safety science, 34(1-3), 177-192.
  • Mohamed, S. (2003). Scorecard Approach to Benchmarking Organizational safety culture in construction. Journal of Construction
    Engineering and Management, 129(1), 80-88. https://doi.org/10.1061/(asce)0733-
    9364(2003)129:1(80)].
  • Al-Bayati, A. J. (2021). Impact of Construction Safety Culture and Construction Safety Climate on Safety Behavior and Safety Motivation. Safety, 7(2), 41. https://doi.org/10.3390/safety7020041
• Based on the review, the authors should compare their findings with the measures proposed in the reviewed articles. 
• Line 44-45: please provide a citation
• Line 61: Again the purpose of the article and its findings should be discussed in light of the findings of the in-depth review that must be added. 
• Line 80: The findings from the in-depth review of previous work should be presented in a table (Table 1 for example) and grouped according to the layer they are most closely related to  (i.e., artefacts, espoused values, or basic assumptions). 
•  Line 91 and 92: This is a very good point and should be addressed in Table 1 to differentiate between metrics based on observation and those based on assumptions.
• Line 304: Very good point. However, it is also important to discuss other factors, such as cultural differences and the proposed solutions. Please review the following:
  • Canales, A., et al. (2009). “Exploring training needs and development of
    construction language courses for American supervisors and Hispanic craft
    workers.” J. Constr. Eng. Manage., 387–396
  • Al-Bayati, A. J., Abudayyeh, O., Fredericks, T., and Butt, S. (2017)
    “Managing Cultural Diversity at U.S. Construction Sites: Hispanic Workers’
    Perspectives.” Journal of Construction Engineering and Management. DOI:
    10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0001359
    • Chan, A., Javed, A., Lyu, S., Hon, C., and Wong, F. (2016). “Strategies for
    improving safety and health of ethnic minority construction workers.” J.
    Constr. Eng. Manage., 05016007
  •  Flynn, M. (2014). “Safety and the diverse workforce: Lessons from
    NIOSH’s work with Latino immigrants.” Prof. Saf., 59(6), 52–57
  • Loosemore, M., Phua, F., Teo, M., and Dunn, K. M. (2012). “Management
    strategies to harness cultural diversity on Australian construction sites—A
    social identity perspective.” Australas. J. Constr. Econ. Build., 12(1), 1–11. 
• Firm Size, Housekeeping, etc. The authors should review the articles that discussed these aspects and discuss them 

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your discerning comments and please see the attached document for our replies.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 5 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The subject of the work submitted for review is interesting and could be successfully developed. Unfortunately, it has not been presented in a clear and understandable way in this article.

Below I present detailed comments:

Note 1: The introductory chapter lacks information on whether such research has already been conducted in other European countries with a similar economic development to Sweden.

Note 2: There is no use of engineering techniques in the presentation of research results. The article would have a much greater scientific value and a better reception by the scientific community if the survey results were presented in tabular form; the content of the questions asked to respondents should be available. The survey results should be developed in graphical form, e.g. charts. The effect of the proposed actions would be a more clear and positive reception of the reviewed work.

Note 3: The survey results should be analyzed using a selected method that uses a cause-effect chain, e.g. the Dematel method. With such a solution, we would have the weights of individual factors affecting safety and additionally the relationships between factors.

In summary, I believe that the authors did not use the potential of the topic. The entire chapter on survey research, and the presentation and analysis of results should be rewritten and supplemented.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your discerning comments and please the attached document for our replies.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have made the revisions according the comments. They are still suggested to present the processes through which five dimensions of safety culture were identified through the interview and content analysis

Author Response

As mentioned, we very much appreciate the discerning comments on our text – thank you. We’ve added a brief clarification on line 246-247 regarding how the five aspects of safety culture, according to the safety leaders, were identified.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I have no further comments. The text of the article has been significantly expanded and the structure of the article has been improved.

Author Response

As mentioned, we very much appreciate the discerning comments on our text – thank you.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The table is helpful

Author Response

As mentioned, we very much appreciate the discerning comments on our text – thank you.

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This reviewer thanks the authors for their efforts to improve the paper. There is an esintatil need to include the following: 

• Create a table that presents the various definitions of safety culture, including the one adopted by the study.
• Compare the study’s findings with the reviewed definitions, highlighting the aspects in which the reviewed definitions support or align with the study’s results.

Finally, it is important to provide recommendations for future research that emphasize the value, need, or maybe no need of further exploring aspects of safety culture  in the light of available definitions and frameworks.

Author Response

As mentioned, we very much appreciate the discerning comments on our text – thank you. We’ve added the suggested table starting on page 5 as well as an additional recommendation for future research under the conclusion section. Please see lines 539-546.

Reviewer 5 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The corrections made by the authors and their responses to my comments are satisfactory. I believe the article can be published.

Author Response

As mentioned, we very much appreciate the discerning comments on our text – thank you.

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The comments have been revised well by the authors

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you and good luck!