Relationship between social capital, safety competency, and safety behaviors of construction workers

There are many accidents in the construction industry. Unsafe behaviors, a direct cause of accidents, have been studied extensively, but few scholars have examined the role of social capital in improving workers' safety behaviors. Based on the social capital perspective, this paper explored how to improve the safety behaviors of construction workers in order to provide a theoretical basis for the study of improving workers' safety behaviors. Through a literature review and analysis, this paper presented the research hypothesis, constructed a structural equation model (SEM), and explored whether workers' social capital can affect their safety behaviors. The results showed that the structural and relational dimensions of workers' social capital have a significant and direct influence on their safety behaviors, whereas the cognitive dimension does not. The structural and cognitive dimensions significantly affect safety competency, but the relational dimension has an insignificant effect on safety competency. Safety competency significantly affects safety behaviors and has several mediating roles between the structural and cognitive dimensions and safety behavior. This paper provides a theoretical basis for enabling management personnel to develop and improve workers' safety behaviors based on interpersonal relationships. It shows that the interaction, trust, and common language between workers help to improve workers' safety behaviors. This research offers a theoretical basis for studies of construction workers' safety behaviors and helps construction companies improve workers' safety behaviors and their on-site safety from the perspective of social capital.