Institutional environment and institutional logics in construction safety management: the case of climatic heat stress on site

Abstract

Although climatic heat stress can be fully brought under control and prevented from causing short-term or long-term damage to the human body in laboratory experiments, the expected effect of interventions are however often lost in the practice on construction site as frontline personnel are driven by conflicting institutional logics in their specific institutional environment. The paper presents a comparative study between Hong Kong and Mainland China in the case of climatic heat stress management on construction sites. Specifically, we look into how societal culture as institutional logics leads workers and managers to their pragmatic or normative behaviours that deviate from the expected outcome of safety management. Two competing institutional logics in construction safety management are identified and discussed, i.e., production logic and prevention logic. Comparative analysis of the Chinese samples under two different institutional environments identifies two distinct society-level cultural logics that shape personal strategies of reconciling safety and production goals, i.e., Confucianism logic and Chinese pragmatism logic. Their implications on construction safety management are further discussed.