Construction of a Bayesian network based on leadership-culture-behavior model to improve owner safety management behavior

The positive influence of owners' safety management on the safety performance of construction projects has gained significant attention. Considerable research has been performed to examine the relationship of owners' safety leadership (SL), safety culture (SC), and safety management behavior (SMB). However, there is a lack of understanding of the mechanisms of influence of owners' leadership-culture behavior (LCB) and recommendations to improve owners' safety management behavior. This study developed the influence mechanism of owner LCB and explored the optimal intervention plan to improve owners' SMB. First, a longitudinal survey was undertaken, which included more than 2,000 construction projects across China, to collect data. Subsequently, a Bayesian network (BN) was constructed to characterize the influence mechanism of owner LCB. Finally, the effects of different intervention plans on SMB were compared. The results proved that the owners' SL had considerable effects on behavioral improvement when SL and SC were at low levels, whereas SC became prominent when SL and SC were at medium or high levels. This shows that safety leadership and safety culture successively play a role in behavior improvement. Additionally, the combined improvement of role modeling and safety training achieved the best improvement effect on SMB in case projects, which reveals that a combination of safety leadership and safety culture plays a greater role in behavior improvement. This study contributes to the LCB approach and proposes a selection scheme for intervention measures to improve owners' safety management behavior.