
Contracts in tenders for construction projects and occupational health and safety outcomes
– A multi-case study
Sisse Grøn1)2) *, Jeppe L. Møller1), Anders Pilmark1), Karina G.V. Seeberg1), Kristina Thomassen1), Christian Thuesen3) and Jeppe Z.N. Ajslev1)
1)The National Research Centre for the Working Environment, Copenhagen, Denmark.
2)University of Southern Denmark, Esbjerg.
3)DTU -Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby.
*)Presenter
Despite years of attention to prevention and interventions, the construction industry is prone to negative occupational health and safety (OHS) outcomes. Research suggests the earliest phase as key for implementing proactive controls in the later stages of the construction project. Previous studies also finds that the client is in a position to ensure good OHS practices in the construction phase through design and job descriptions in tendering and contract, as these documents specify the demands of contractors and suppliers.
However, there is little empirical knowledge of how a better integration of OHS in the contract affect workers’ OHS in the construction phase. Our project aim to provide that by investigating the quasi-causal relations between contract documents and the observable occupational health and safety practice in the construction phase. In addition, the industry lack research-based instruments to access the OHS content in contracts as well as in practice on construction sites. Thus, the project will develop such instrument in collaboration with industry experts and stakeholders and test it.
The study design is a multi-case study of 16 construction projects. We collect, analyze and score the contract material from all projects with the preliminary assessment instrument. Afterwards we conduct ethnographic fieldwork on all case sites and apply qualitative comparative analysis.
We will present an overview of the most relevant OHS factors as well as our preliminary assessment instrument.