이진우  한철호  전영훈  이창희

Vol. 39,  No. 3, pp. 1-6, Jun.  2024
10.14341/JKOSOS.2024.39.3.1

serious accident punishment act safety consciousness assessment construction superintendent DAGMAR model

PDF

There are ongoing debates on the effectiveness of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act (SAPA) on ensuring safety management and accident prevention, as the annual number of fatal injuries did not decrease even after its enforcement. However, for right appraisal of the effectiveness of SAPA, it must not only be rated based on direct outcomes such as the number of fatal injuries, but also on the indirect effects related to the improvement of the safety management of firms or organizations. A construction superintendent is one of crucial persons who ensure worker safety in construction sites. They must have a high safety consciousness for effective and appropriate safety management in construction sites. In this, the impact of the enforcement of SAPA on the safety consciousness of the construction superintendents is investigated to add a new dimension in the appraisal of the effectiveness of SAPA. DAGMAR-based safety consciousness assessment model is used to measure four safety consciousness components, i.e. awareness, comprehension, conviction, and action. Three hundred and five responses obtained from a survey conducted among construction superintendents are used to analyze the shift of the safety consciousness of the construction superintendents due to the enforcement of SAPA. The results reveal that awareness and comprehension components significantly improved after the SAPA enforcement. Conversely, conviction and action components slightly improved. They also reveal that the changes are more significant for construction superintendents affiliated to principal contractors, compared to those affiliated to subcontractors.