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

Abstract

This article investigates the understanding and manifestation of safety culture within the Swedish construction industry. Specifically, through 20 interviews with safety leaders, this study explores the connection between safety culture and structures and processes on construction worksites. The theoretical framework draws on different perspectives on organisational culture, in general, and safety culture, in particular. The results highlight the importance that is placed on management and leadership in developing safety culture, with leaders setting examples and being actively involved in safety practices. Safety regulations are seen as crucial tools for change, influencing safety culture significantly. The size of the company and characteristics of employees, including challenges posed by subcontractors and language barriers, also impact safety culture. Safety training is essential for directing behaviours towards a good safety culture, and housekeeping is identified as an indicator of safety culture. In the discussion, the matter of understanding safety culture in relation to specific structures and processes on construction worksites is analysed, problematised and connected to prevailing perspectives within safety culture research.

1. Introduction

The construction industry constitutes a multifaceted and complex sector, encompassing a wide range of enterprises—from small-scale craft businesses to large multinational construction corporations. It is typically divided into several subsectors, including residential construction, infrastructure development, and specialised construction services. It comprises activities such as sheet metal work, electrical installations, ventilation systems, plumbing, painting, glazing, heavy machinery contracting, and other technical services. The occupational structure within the industry is equally diverse, spanning from skilled tradespeople—such as carpenters and bricklayers—to highly educated professionals, including civil engineers, architects, and project managers [1]. This diversity reflects the interdisciplinary nature of construction processes, which require the integration of manual craftsmanship, technical expertise, and strategic project coordination.

The construction industry is known for its high-risk environment, making it one of the most dangerous sectors worldwide to work in [2]. Many construction tasks involve perilous situations in themselves, such as working at heights using scaffolding, ladders, or roofs, which increases the risk of falls. In the Swedish construction industry, same as elsewhere in the world, falls from heights are also one of the leading causes of fatalities in the industry [1]. Additionally, construction sites are filled with heavy machinery and equipment, such as cranes and bulldozers, with workers often exposed to moving parts, which can result in accidents. Furthermore, construction work often takes place outdoors, exposing workers to extreme weather conditions such as heat, cold, rain, and snow, which can affect the physical work environment and lead to slips and falls, for example [3,4].

Besides working systematically with the work environment through safety management practices, including actively handling the risks that emerge and putting physical and organisational safeguards in place so that they will not appear again, the notion of safety culture is commonly proposed as a more profound solution to the industry’s ills [5,6,7]. In general, safety culture on construction worksites can be understood as the collective commitment within companies to always prioritise and uphold safety [8]. It typically involves management commitment to creating an environment where safety is a core value integrated into every aspect of operations [9]. This culture is characterised by proactive measures to identify and mitigate risks, continuous safety training, and open communication about safety concerns. Leadership plays a crucial role in modelling safe behaviours and fostering a culture where workers feel empowered to speak up about hazards without fear of retribution. By embedding safety into the organisational ethos, construction companies strive to reduce accidents and promote the well-being of their workforce [10]. This points to a close connection being made in practice between cultural values and the structures and processes on construction worksites in which they manifest themselves. Safety culture is thus seemingly not to be understood as only norms and values regarding safety, but rather as connected to more concrete aspects of a given construction worksite. This begs the following question: What are these structures and processes and how are they perceived to be connected to safety culture by those working in the construction industry? Despite a plethora of studies about safety culture in the construction industry see., e.g., [5,6,9], there are few studies on how safety culture is understood and manifested in relation to concrete structures and processes on worksites, especially in a Swedish context.

The purpose of this article is to explore how safety culture is understood by safety leaders in the Swedish construction industry in relation to structures and processes on construction worksites. In other words, this study aims to highlight safety leaders’ understandings of how safety culture is made manifest in the daily operations. This study focuses on the experiences of safety leaders given the influence they have over safety development work at construction worksites through their interpretation of the concept of safety culture [5].

This article is structured in the following way: First, the theoretical framework of organisational culture and safety culture is presented, followed by the methodology. Then, the findings are described under five categories highlighting specific structures and processes as experienced by the safety leaders. This article ends with a discussion and conclusions regarding the manifest nature of safety culture in the construction industry.

1.1. Theoretical Framework

1.1.1. Organisational Culture

Schein [11] defines the culture of a group as “the accumulated shared learning of that group as it solves its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, which has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be thought to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, feel, and behave in relation to those problems”. (p. 6). Schein, furthermore, argues that there are three different levels or layers of culture that are intimately connected to each other: artefacts, espoused values, and basic assumptions. Artefacts, seen as the outer layer, involve those parts of a culture that are readily visible, i.e., the structure, processes and behaviours connected to a certain group. Espoused values, the middle layer, include the ideals, ideologies, goals, and rationalisations that guide the members of a given group. Finally, basic assumptions, metaphorically the inner layer, are the unconscious and taken-for-granted beliefs that are the main impetus for behaviour. However, given the interconnectedness of the different layers (e.g., that basic assumptions affect what espoused values and artefacts, respectively, that are active in each group), an implication of the model is that culture can be studied in relation to one or more of these layers. Still, it must be possible to describe how these aspects are related to each other, something that can be difficult to do given that the visible artefacts within a group—which can be studied through participant observations—are not necessarily connected to basic assumptions in a strict cultural sense [11]. Specific behaviours can, to a large extent, be connected to the structure and processes of an organisation, rather than culture strictly speaking. Schein also connects the above definition to organisational culture, i.e., cultural expressions tied to a specific organisational context.

Alvesson [12], on the other hand, focuses on the importance of symbolism in his preferred definition of organisational culture:

To talk about organisational culture seems to be the same as to talk about how important symbolism for people—with rituals, myths, stories and legends—and how one should interpret events, ideas and experiences that are affected and formed by the group they are a part of [13], referenced in [12].

In this sense, culture is primarily about the systems of meaning shared within groups that, taken together, comprise the culture.

1.1.2. Safety Culture as an Aspect of Organisational Culture

Guldenmund [8] divides previous studies focusing on safety culture according to three variables: those focusing on the “core” of the culture (e.g., values and assumptions) or the artefacts (e.g., practices and behaviours), or those focusing on both, in relation to safety. When it comes to relevant research methods, qualitative studies can involve ethnography where the researchers try to describe culture as something that the organisation is rather than something it has. An implication of this is that the organisation’s history is important for understanding its cultural development. A focus on artefacts, by contrast, implies that one explores what the organisation has, i.e., a focus on present conditions and expressions, which can be mapped through a questionnaire (i.e., quantitatively). Here, the researcher settles for measuring a given culture rather than understanding it per se in a qualitative sense. A third perspective, which Guldenmund labels pragmatic, takes a starting point in three fundamental features of an organisation: structure (i.e., formal organisation and division of roles and responsibilities), culture (i.e., basic assumptions), and process (e.g., production activities). This view is called pragmatic given that expert opinions are prioritised rather than empirical studies in the above sense. The pragmatic perspective consequently also focuses on change in relation to possible cultures in the future.

Edwards et al. [14] take a similar approach in their discussion of safety culture, dividing it into three main research traditions. Firstly, the normative approach focuses on safety culture as something that can be analysed in terms of being “high” or “low, i.e., safety culture can be good or bad and it is possible to steer the culture in what is seen as the right direction. The normative aspect consequently lies in that culture is conceptualised as something that can be altered through changes in, e.g., safety management processes. Anthropological approaches, on the other hand, are more in line with what Guldenmund [8] calls academic perspectives given that norms and values are focus areas, often in relation to the deeper cultural layers of an organisation. This approach tries to increase the understanding of safety culture rather than evaluate it in accordance with predetermined criteria. The final approach Edwards et al. call pragmatic, although in a different sense compared to Guldenmund. From this perspective, safety is primarily about behaviours and, consequently, behavioural practices should be in focus when studying safety culture. For a certain behaviour to be seen as being shaped by culture, however, one also needs to understand the underlying norms and values as well. Still, the behaviours themselves are the focus of this type of culture study.

Safety culture as a term thus has connections to both culture research in an anthropological or social psychology sense and organisational research focusing on structures and processes. For example, both Guldenmund [8] and Edwards et al. [14] refer to Schein’s model where culture comprises basic assumptions, espoused values, and artefacts. Guldenmund agrees that it is important to make a distinction between basic assumptions and espoused values and that Schein’s “layer model” is commonly applied in safety culture research. Richter and Koch [15], on the other hand, define safety culture as “the shared and learned meanings, experiences and interpretations of work and safety—expressed partially symbolically—which guide peoples’ actions towards risks, accidents and prevention”. (p. 705). This definition is more in line with Alvesson’s [12] focus on symbols, rituals, and myths and that it is important to study how individuals use these to interpret events, ideas, and experiences.

In line with previous research, Flin et al. [16] emphasise that safety climate can be seen as a measurable snapshot of an organisation’s safety culture, where factors such as leadership, communication, and training are central for understanding and developing safety-related behaviours. Similarly, Mohamed [17] presents a scorecard approach to benchmark organisational safety culture in the construction industry, focusing on measurable elements such as management commitment, communication, training, and behavioural reinforcement. Further emphasising the practical importance of organisational structures and leadership, Al-Bayati [18] found that both safety culture and safety climate are important to explore to understand safety behaviour and safety motivation among construction workers.

Finally, language barriers, in particular, have been shown to significantly affect communication and safety outcomes on worksites [19,20]. In addition, cultural diversity poses challenges for establishing a shared understanding of safety norms and leadership practices [21,22]. Studies have emphasised that adapting safety training and communication strategies to fit culturally and linguistically diverse workforces is essential for promoting a strong safety culture [20,23]. Overall, these studies highlight that safety culture development in the construction industry must consider not only organisational structures and processes but also the social and cultural dynamics present within the workforce.

These research perspectives (see

Table 1. Summary of main perspectives and definitions in the reviewed literature.

Authors	Main Perspectives and Definitions
Guldenmund [8]	Argues that safety culture can be divided into three main strands. The academic approach aims, through qualitative methodology primarily, to describe culture rather than perform evaluations of it. The analytical approach focuses on culture as an attribute of an organisation, typically through quantitative measures. The pragmatic approach highlights the interconnectedness between the culture, structure, and processes of an organisation and how they together generate behaviour.
Schein (2017) [11]	Organisational culture is the shared knowledge a group develops while solving problems of external adaptation and internal integration—proven effective enough to be taught to new members as the right way to perceive, think, feel, and act in such situations.
Alvesson [12]; Frost [13]	Organisational culture is essentially about the importance of symbolism—rituals, myths, stories, and legends—and how people interpret events, ideas, and experiences shaped by the group they belong to.
Edwards et al. [14]	Divide the safety culture research into three main strands. The normative conceptualisation of safety culture evaluates the strength and presence of safety culture within an organisation. The anthropological conceptualization considers more directly the shared values and assumptions within an organisation. The pragmatist conceptualisation focuses on behaviour and the causes of behaviour.
Richter and Koch (2004) [15]	Safety culture is the shared and learned meanings, experiences, and interpretations of work and safety—partly expressed through symbols—that shape how people act in relation to risks, accidents, and prevention.
Flin et al. [16]	Safety culture comprises underlying assumptions, values and beliefs and measuring safety climate can be considered as taking a ‘snapshot’ of a culture at a given time.
Mohamed (2003) [17]	Safety culture is a part of a larger organisational culture, affecting workers’ behaviours and attitudes in relation to safety performance within an organisation.
Al-Bayati [21]	Highlight the importance of considering cross-cultural communication and cultural differences on worksites involving individuals with different nationalities, through high power distance, collectivism, and uncertainty avoidance [24].
Al-Bayati [18]	Safety culture can be understood as being connected to, or representing, policies and principles guiding people in the safety decision making. Safety climate is consequently the manifestation of these aspects within an organisation [25].
Canales et al. [19]	Focus on explaining behaviour differences on worksites with individuals with different nationalities from a culture perspective by applying Hofstede’s [26] five criteria: individualism vs. collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and time orientation.
Chan et al. [23]	Explore the matter of how construction workers from different cultures interpret and understand safety and health messages, with references to, e.g., acculturation theory [27], i.e., the learning process involved with people exposed to a new culture.
Flynn [20]	Culture is a system of shared behaviours and beliefs that, in the case of immigrant workers, affects their understanding of their working situation, how they adapt to safety risks, etc.
Loosemore et al. (2012) [22]	Focus on the matter of language barriers in relation to safety, with reference to social identity theory e.g., [28].

) show that culture, as well as safety culture, can be looked upon with quite different lenses, both with a normative, with a culture-in-itself approach, as well as with a pragmatic view, where the outer layer with its structures, processes and behaviours are focused. In this article, we will see how aspects of all these views come into play.

2. Materials and Methods

This article is based on 20 interviews conducted with individuals from different organisations in the Swedish construction industry in late autumn 2020 into early winter 2021 in a research project focusing on safety culture at a safety training park. All interviewees worked with health and safety issues in an operational and/or strategic sense, and they also had extensive experience of working within the industry in general. Specific job titles were, for example, health and safety manager, health and safety advisor, and health and safety engineer. The majority worked at large construction companies or for the employers’ association The Swedish Construction Federation (SCF). Two representatives from the construction industry trade union were also interviewed, as well as a person from a consulting company that developed health and safety-related services for companies in the industry. Something the interviewees, except the trade union representatives, had in common was that they all had been active in one way or another in the development of the safety park, which serves as the main training hub for construction companies throughout Sweden, either in a direct sense or as part of various reference groups as key advisors. The interviewees represent a cross-section of common roles on management/strategic levels within the Swedish construction industry with participants from major companies and dominant industry organisations throughout the country. They were thus chosen based on their knowledge and deep insights of the construction industry in a qualitative sense, rather than as a representative sample of the industry statistically [29].

Most of the interviewees did not have any higher, formal education in health and safety issues, and had mainly undergone company internal training. Many also had experiences of working as a union safety representative at some point in their professional life, including some interviewees who later became part of the management within the companies. A few had studied at university level but none specifically focusing on the construction sector.

The interviews usually lasted one hour and were conducted online on Zoom or Teams since the interviewees came from many different parts of Sweden and because this study was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic when travel was restricted. In line with recommendations for research ethics by the Swedish Research Council [30], the interviewees were informed of the purpose of the interview, the possibility to end the interview at any point, and that they were not required to answer specific questions should they not want to, and how the interview material would be used in this study. With the consent of the interviewees, the interviews were also recorded and then transcribed verbatim. The interviews followed a semi-structured interview template [29] focused on three areas (see Appendix A):

• Experience of construction companies’ general development work focusing on safety.
• Views on safety culture.
• Opinions and experiences of safety training.

The interview material was uploaded into NVivo, which is an analysis tool for qualitative data. The material focusing on safety culture was coded by one of the members of the research group and the coding process was interspersed with meetings where the researchers discussed categorizations and interpretations together. The analysis was inspired by qualitative content analysis as described by Granheim and Lundman [31] with matters related to safety culture being coded into smaller categories such as “attitudes and behaviours”, “leadership”, “housekeeping”, and “training and education”. These codes were then collated into five broader categories representing key aspects of the understanding of safety culture that the safety leaders expressed, i.e., what they in their experiences most associated with safety culture on construction sites. Content analysis is thus used to systematically interpret and categorise content, such as interview transcripts. The method enables researchers to identify patterns, themes, and meanings in participants’ statements. It is a particularly suitable approach for interview studies because it combines structure with flexibility and allows for an in-depth understanding of people’s experiences and perspectives. While statistical methods focus on quantifiable patterns (e.g., the DEMATEL method), content analysis allows for interpretation of meaning, context, and subjective perspectives—essential elements when exploring complex social phenomena in rich, narrative data. Hence, focus is on gaining deeper contextual understanding of the phenomenon rather than generalising the results to the industry at large [32].

3. Results

When the interviewees described safety culture, they usually explained the concept with the help of some influencing structures and processes on construction worksites in which it can express itself. Since safety culture as such is an elusive phenomenon, the descriptions are directed at issues such as how safety culture could be measured and in what ways it did make itself observable. So, even if the interviewees did not have too much to say about the theoretical definitions of safety culture, their examples of the connections between structures and processes and safety culture are numerous. The following quote is a general description of conditions in the workplace that, according to the interviewee in question, influence safety culture.

Culture is really like with what energy you choose to do something, so a morning meeting is a structure, we have morning meetings every morning. The quality of that morning meeting is actually the culture, that is, we can have a morning meeting where we ask curious questions, we see everyone, we ensure that everyone is heard, we pay attention to our variations as well so that the culture is based somewhere on our relationships, our way of treating each other, respect for everyone, we see everyone, everyone is heard, so somewhere I can say that when I say that a culture reinforces a structure, it really means that the culture gives us a quality in the implementation of what we have agreed, but the structure supports the culture.

In the quote above, the person describes this relationship between culture, structure and processes. Culture is, in a way, seen as the quality of the execution, and at the same time it is expressed as a specific value that gives life to the structure and related processes. The structure is, on the other hand, a context which supports, frames, or gives the culture a place to express itself. As will be outlined below, the interviewees also believed that structures strengthen and shape culture and that, in some sense, culture is an expressed form of structures within the company. Below are five examples of structures and processes that the interviewees perceived as important for understanding how a safety culture is created.

3.1. Management and Leadership

One of the more frequent examples that the interviewees believed reflects safety culture concerns management and leadership. A representative from a construction company argued that the development of a safety culture is first and foremost a management issue. A person from the SCF expressed the same opinion, i.e., that leadership is the most important issue when it comes to the creation of safety culture. Another interviewee from a construction company explained that it is about setting a good example, showing commitment and participation in the company’s safety work and in that way being a co-creator of the company’s safety culture. It is a prerequisite that the leaders understand risk and safety and that managers set the agenda for safety work, as one of the interviewees explained:

There must be concrete behaviours that you see and that are observable to be able to say that it is a safety culture that makes a difference. And that requires present and active, committed leadership.

This also means that, according to a trade union representative, it is usually the companies that can afford to employ a health and safety manager who also has more fully functioning safety practices. A representative from the SCF also believed that if the health and safety manager is not heard about safety issues by the management, this could be an expression of a less developed safety culture.

Another interviewee from a construction company also believed that leadership does not necessarily have to be synonymous with managers or supervisors, but it can also be about other key people. In the quote below, this seems to be about people in the workplace who have prominent informal roles, perhaps through seniority, but lack formal management responsibility:

So, it is a known phenomenon that in groups you follow each other, ‘this is how we do it and have always done it’ and if the older people do this, then you follow the group, it is something that is many times bigger than the individual. ‘This is how we do it’… So, if you get some key people with you… then it will make a difference.

In summary, management and leadership is seen as having a central responsibility when it comes to safety culture and as co-creators in the processes that develop a safety culture in that organisation and at that workplace. At the same time, in this co-creation process management should also lead by example and show what kind of safety culture they wish to see. Another reason why management is seen as important for the development of a safety culture is likely also because it is they, but not only them, that to a large extent shape the structures that surround the organisation.

3.2. Regulations

Another important aspect that the interviewees believed affects the safety culture is the regulations regarding safety. An interviewee from the trade union believed that the safety regulations in the industry have been important tools for change regarding safety. A representative from a construction company believed that the rules that now exist in the industry have also brought safety to another level. It is also something that is believed to have affected the safety culture. Today, it is difficult for smaller companies to enter a larger construction site if they do not adapt their operations to the rules and routines regarding safety that the general contractor at the specific workplace applies and as prescribed by work environment laws and regulations. A person from SCF expressed it in the following way:

I think of [mandatory] systematic work environment management and safety culture as one, because I think it is very much connected. I think that’s where you develop the culture. I think as an industry we have been very focused on projects; we do a project and then we do a new project and if we made a mistake on the first project, we repeat that mistake on the next project because we are so project-focused. Here, I think that systematic work environment management and safety culture are so important to change that, but I still think that there is a big focus on each project and not on the long-term work, I think so, that’s my feeling.

Here, it can be difficult to know which is the chicken or the egg, metaphorically speaking, in terms of the systematic work environment management as required by law or the safety culture. Is it the case that safety culture is expressed in the way that the systematic work environment management is carried out, at the same time as the work with the systematic work environment management has also influenced and changed the safety culture in the organisation?

3.3. Company Size and Employee Characteristics

The size of the construction company is important for safety culture according to the interviewees. Several pointed to differences in the quality and level of development of the safety practices between larger and smaller construction companies. A decisive difference seems to be about having people or departments that explicitly work with safety issues and the development of a good safety culture. It is understood here that a safety culture must also be expressed in actual safety practices such as systematic work environment management but also communicated and documented within the organisation to be understood and developed.

Obstacles regarding subcontractors and safety culture are also described by several interviewees. The challenges described are that safety knowledge and training can differ between the main contractor and the subcontractors, an issue that seems to be addressed, for example, by agreements and rules regarding behaviour, i.e., through codes of conduct. Another challenge in relation to subcontractors mentioned by interviewees was language, where construction workers from other countries quite naturally do not speak Swedish but perhaps not English either. This is believed to be a challenge for different parties in the industry to understand each other in an instrumental sense, but also culturally where the view of safety and leadership can differ between different countries. Given the importance of relationships and communication for safety culture, it may also be natural to see linguistic understanding as central to the creation of a common safety culture in a workplace (see Alvesson, 2015; Schein, 2017). A trade union representative also pointed out that in some cases the form of employment can play a role in safety culture, where some construction workers experience insecurity in their employment and do not like to point out inconveniences in the work environment.

3.4. Safety Training

In a similar way that regulations can be seen as structures and processes that frame behaviours, safety training is also important in terms of directing and influencing behaviours in the direction that is desirable for the organisation. Since behaviours are seen as an expression or evidence of, if you will, a good safety culture, the structures that have the purpose of controlling behaviours are also understood as supporting a good safety culture. A person from the SCF mentioned that training aimed at managers also had the aim of making them realise their role and responsibility for the safety culture:

Yes, it was rather a, you don’t have to call it training, but it was like a knowledge-raising programme for our managers, you would introduce the managers to their importance in terms of their leadership and culture.

An interviewee from a construction company furthermore mentioned how they in their company always tried to weave safety culture into their leadership training:

If you look at the concrete part of safety culture training that we had before, we are now trying to weave safety culture into all our trainings, so that it becomes an integral part. In fact, we have sorted out some parts to include health and safety training in other educations, such as, e.g., leadership programme. Education will always be extremely important to us.

3.5. Housekeeping

In principle, all the interviewees were asked if, and if so how, it could be determined whether there was a good safety culture at a given workplace. The vast majority answered, usually directly and with emphasis: “Yes, if the workplace is clean!”. Housekeeping was described as an expression of safety culture but can also be seen as a structure and process where control, commitment, sense of order, structure, planning, and systematics become the structural ingredients that underlie the “housekeeping” that prevails in the workplace. In organisational culture research, it is said that culture is also expressed in artefacts, and this mainly refers to things that are created by human hands, something that in this context can be interpreted as the order one has in one’s things (Schein, 2017). A person from the SCF exemplified this as

…you take your shoes off when you enter the shed, then it’s a good working environment, I’ve thought about it when I’m out, just there you set a kind of standard, how you want it where you change [your clothes] and where you eat, it’s not the whole truth, but there is a point in it, but then it may be that it doesn’t matter how many signs and how housekeeping it’s on paper, the culture may be different anyway, but usually it’s noticeable in the way they talk to each other.

Housekeeping can, according to the person above, be seen as an expression of a structure and process that basically reflects safety culture. The safety culture is expressed in how the workplace has been organised, as one of the trade union interviewees puts it.

See

Table 2. Summary of key findings by category.

Category	Key Findings
Management and leadership	Leadership is central to safety culture. Managers must lead by example, be engaged and present. Informal leaders also shape norms. Leadership shapes structures that enable safety practices.
Regulations	Regulations and systematic work environment management influence safety culture. Compliance pressures smaller firms to adapt. There is interplay between formal regulation and cultural change.
Company size and employee characteristics	Larger companies have more resources for structured safety work. Challenges include subcontractors’ knowledge, language barriers, and precarious employment impacting willingness to report risks.
Safety training	Training shapes behaviours and supports safety culture. Leadership training increasingly integrates safety culture to raise awareness of managerial responsibility.
Housekeeping	Cleanliness is widely seen as a visible sign of safety culture. It reflects control, planning, and mutual respect. Physical order symbolises deeper cultural values.

for a summary of key findings by category.

4. Discussion

The purpose of this article was to provide examples of how safety culture is understood by safety leaders in the Swedish construction industry in relation to workplace structures and processes. In sum, it is not always so easy to distinguish between what the interviewees regard as aspects that influence safety culture and what may in a direct sense be explicit expressions of safety culture. However, we interpret it to mean that what the interviewees address as issues related to safety culture are also the things they associate with safety culture. It can then be both structures and processes, such as the regulatory demands for a safe workplace, safety training and the like, and what is interpreted as an expression of safety culture, such as housekeeping in the workplace, attitudes, and behaviours that are perceived as focused on safety. A distinction can also be made between what creates or develops a good safety culture. Instead of talking about structures, for example, one could talk about efforts the intentions of which is to create a good safety culture, and instead of talking about expressions of a safety culture, one could talk about visible results of efforts that are made. When many of the interviewees say that it is possible to assess the quality of the safety culture relatively quickly by seeing if there is housekeeping in the workplace, this should not be interpreted as the interviewees saying that housekeeping in the workplace is synonymous with a good safety culture. It should rather be seen as one of several indicators that efforts are also being made or, if you prefer, that there are structures for a safety culture in that workplace. In other words, housekeeping in the workplace is seen as a result of these efforts.

To a large extent, the interviewees could be said to express a pragmatic perspective upon safety culture in the way, for example, Edwards et al. [14] point out that when studying safety culture, observable aspects should be in focus. This practical focus on observable structures and behaviours aligns with benchmarking approaches in the construction industry, such as the scorecard model proposed by Mohamed [17]. This is consistent with Flin et al. [16] who argue that safety climate provides a measurable representation of organisational safety culture, focusing particularly on leadership, communication, and training as key indicators. This connection between organisational structures, leadership practices, and visible safety behaviours is further supported by Al-Bayati [18], who demonstrated that safety culture and climate significantly impact both safety behaviour and safety motivation in the construction industry. Likewise, the interviewees see the behaviour within the construction company as evidence that there is an existing safety culture at the core of the values and basic assumptions. In some ways, the interviewees also express what Edwards et al. [14] label as a normative perspective upon safety culture in the sense that there seems to be a taken-for-granted view on what a good safety culture is and how it is to be shown in practice.

Taking a different perspective, the inner part of the concept of culture has been likened by Guldenmund [8] to the innermost part of an onion. The other outer layers are the parts of the organisation where the culture comes into visible expression. Based on such an understanding, we argue that all the examples given in this study are largely about this outer layer of culture. This is primarily about the structures, processes, and behaviours that exist in a given organisation. In this way, this relationship seems to be simple: cultures are created in social processes and form a kind of readiness for action for what people together consider important, and these values are then expressed in how people act. Still, the interviewees believed it was important to clarify and formulate what safety culture really is, and how they can be sure that the structures that exist in the organisation and in the workplace are really an expression of the safety culture. If they have proper structures in place, i.e., management and leadership, appropriate regulations, quality education and training, and so forth, why is it that people still sometimes do not seem to prioritise safe behaviour? Could this also be an expression of culture, or expressed differently, flaws in this inner part of what constitutes a common safety culture?

However, Richter and Koch [15] argue that the question of a common safety culture should be problematised as studies have shown that subcultures within, for example, specific work groups can have a greater impact on safety than any overall safety cultures within a company. We can also link this to the complexity of the construction industry, which often includes employees from a variety of companies in every project, many of which are subcontractors. Based on the idea that culture depends on a social context for its creation, i.e., that people work in social contexts that enable the development of, for example, common norms, the construction industry’s often complex and fragmented work organisation and work processes speak against the focus being on a common safety culture within the industry [33].

Furthermore, the complexity of establishing a shared safety culture is amplified by the linguistic and cultural diversity often present on construction sites. Previous studies have shown that language barriers and differing cultural perceptions of leadership and safety practices can hinder effective communication and the internalisation of safety norms [19,20,21]. These challenges underline the importance of culturally and linguistically adapted safety training and leadership practices as critical factors in fostering a cohesive and resilient safety culture in diverse construction environments [22,23].

This does not necessarily mean that there are no overall cultural patterns that can be common to different companies or even an entire industry. For example, Alvesson [12] talks about so-called cultural traffic at these broader levels, i.e., that cultural expressions (for example regarding safety) are a complicated mix of organisational culture, professional culture, and broader social culture, for example. Given the complex and often fragmented nature of the construction industry, as well as the fact that these are generally smaller companies (i.e., subcontractors) that may lack the resources to ensure that everything is in place (training, procedures, etc.), we believe that cultural analysis can also advantageously focus on micro levels of specific smaller companies or working groups, something that would provide insights into safety culture among subcontractors. Here, we agree with Richter and Koch [15] who believe that cultural analysis and understanding should consider specific and local conditions regarding structures, processes, and social relationships. Furthermore, the matter of smaller subcontractor firms having difficulties upholding safety standards as compared to larger companies is well documented in the literature [33], making the issue of specific and local conditions connected to company size all the more important to consider.

Another question that we believe should be asked is whether the creation of a good safety culture should be seen as a top-down or a bottom-up process. Is the creation of a good safety culture something that management is essentially responsible for and should govern or should safety culture be seen more as a product of social processes coming from the workers? The answer, as we see it, is both. As a phenomenon, we should assume that culture is a product of invisible, social, common processes and rarely something that can be fully understood and conceptualised in the context in which one finds oneself [11,12]. In this sense, safety culture can be seen as something that is created “on the floor”. At the same time, we cannot think that the surrounding structures and processes in the form of management decisions and actions, regulations, safety training, etc., are not significant in the creation processes of a good safety culture as well and would only be seen as expressions of the safety culture that exists. Consequently, we also need to think that the surrounding structures and processes regarding safety that exist in the organisation provide a framework for the safety culture to react within. They can be seen as mutual processes.

5. Conclusions

The results highlight the following aspects:

• Management and leadership are essential in developing safety culture, with leaders setting the norms by examples and being actively involved in safety practices.
• Safety regulations are seen as powerful tools for change, influencing safety culture significantly.
• The size of the company and characteristics of employees, including challenges posed by subcontractors and language barriers, also impact safety culture.
• Safety training is essential for directing behaviours towards a good safety culture.
• Housekeeping is identified as an indicator of safety culture.

In conclusion, the concept of culture is a dynamic one that is formed in daily work practices, where good intentions meet the realities of production. In other words, there are clear advantages to placing the phenomenon of safety culture in relation to organisational structures and processes. This makes it possible to analyse and discuss how cultural expressions can influence, and be influenced by, issues related to, for example, regulatory requirements for safety or management and leadership practices.

As discussed, future studies should explore subcontractor safety culture in relation to the safety culture of the main contractor, with particular attention to the challenges that may arise from such inter-organisational dynamics. Moreover, in-depth case study methods are recommended to examine how companies of different sizes and structures can be understood specifically in relation to safety culture artefacts. There is also a need to empirically and theoretically explore safety culture in the construction industry from an “academic approach” as described by Guldenmund [8], i.e., describe and ultimately understand culture rather than evaluating it from certain criteria. In terms of methodology, this would entail qualitative approaches including, but not limited to, grounded theory or ethnography. Such an approach would contribute to a deeper understanding of how safety culture is formed, maintained, and potentially transformed over time.