Safety Science 48 (2010) 698707

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Safety Science
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Characteristic analysis of occupational accidents at small construction enterprises

Ching-Wu Cheng a,b,*, Sou-Sen Leu a, Chen-Chung Lin c, Chihhao Fan b
a
National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, 43 Keelung Road, Section 4, Taipei 106, Taiwan
b
Ming Chi University of Technology, 84 Gungjuan Road, Taishan, Taipei 243, Taiwan
c
Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, No. 99, Lane 407, Hengke Road, Sijhih City, Taipei 221, Taiwan

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The purpose of this present study is to investigate the characteristic factors responsible for occupational
Received 15 June 2009 accident occurrence for small construction enterprises in Taiwan, using methodologies of descriptive sta-
Received in revised form 18 November 2009 tistics, correlation coefcient analysis as well as ANOVA. The data used in this study was collected from
Accepted 1 February 2010
the Council of Labor Affairs of Taiwan Central Government between years 2000 and 2007. From the
results of this study, it was found that the factors inuencing occupational accident development for
small construction enterprises included the health and safety management skills, employers values on
Keywords:
the health and safety practices, and the degree of compliance with labor safety laws and regulations.
Construction industry
Occupational accidents
The results also indicated that occupational accidents tend to occur (1) during the workers rst day at
Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) the workplace, (2) when the construction project has an excessively low health and safety management,
Safety management (3) when employer did not provide personal protection equipments to the workers, (4) when personal
protection equipment was not correctly used, and (5) when workers failed to adopt safeguards or ignored
hazard warning signs in the workplace. To reduce the overall occurring rate of occupational accidents per
1000 persons in the construction industry, it is important to implement required health and safety prac-
tices and training effectively to ensure that all workers acknowledge and follow these requirements reg-
ulations when working.
2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
According to Taiwan Labor Safety and Health Act, a major occu-
pational accident is dened as an accident that causes injuries to
three or more persons or causes the death of at least one person
at the time it occurs. By convention, most contractors only practice
the minimum safety and health requirements by regulation in Tai-
wans construction industry. More specically, in order to stay eco-
nomically competitive and sustainable and to earn maximum
prots, many contractors only execute basic safety measures and
eliminate many important hazard prevention training programs
during construction project implementation. As a consequence
(shown in Fig. 1), the death rate in construction industry (exclud-
ing the deaths from occupational disease and trafc accidents) is
much higher than that in other industries in 2007 according to
the annual statistical report by the governing agency.
Such cost reduction practices are adopted by small construction
enterprises even more extensively due to limited monetary circu-
lation (Hinze and Raboud, 1988; Hinze and Gambatese, 2003;
* Corresponding author. Address: National Taiwan University of Science and
Technology, 43 Keelung Road, Section 4, Taipei 106, Taiwan. Tel.: +886 2
29089899x4658; fax: +886 2 29041914.
E-mail address: cwcheng@mail.mcut.edu.tw (C.-W. Cheng).
Tam et al., 2004). The small construction enterprises have a higher
injury risk compared to large construction enterprises in most
countries (Aksorn and Hadikusumo, 2008; Hinze et al., 1998,
2005; Fabiano et al., 2004; Huang and Hinze, 2003; Mendeloff
and Kagey, 1990; Stevens, 1999; Sawacha et al., 1999; Suruda,
1992). For instance, Camino Lpez et al. (2008) analyzed the effect
of company size on distribution of occupational accidents among
13,01,956 construction industry accidents in Spain between years
1990 and 2000, and found that companies with less than 25
employees had very high accident rates. In addition, many scholars
have pointed out that the large construction enterprises are better
at performing health and safety management works than small
construction enterprises (Shalini, 2008; Fernandez-Muniz et al.,
2008; Chi et al., 2005; Walters, 2001; Hinze and Raboud, 1988;
Hinze and Gambatese, 2003; McVittie et al., 1997). After analyzing
the characteristics of occupational accidents in South Koreas con-
struction industry, Jeong (1998) found that small construction
companies with less than 10 employees have a non-fatal injury
and death rates about three and two times higher than those with
over 1000 employees, respectively. Hasle et al. (2009) investigated
small construction enterprise owners accident causation attribute
and prevention, and concluded that safety professionals must keep
in mind that the owners of small construction enterprises may deal
with health and safety issues quite differently compared to those
in large construction enterprises.

0925-7535/$ - see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ssci.2010.02.001
 C.-W. Cheng et al. / Safety Science 48 (2010) 698707 699

0.40
0.3686 All industries
Construction
0.35
0.3227

0.2925 0.29
0.30
0.2681
Fatalities per 1000

0.25 0.271

0.2415 0.2363
0.20

0.15
0.1123

0.10 0.0862
0.0736
0.0657
0.0969
0.05 0.0773
0.0595 0.0581

0.00
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
Year

Fig. 1. Fatalities per 1000 in all industries and construction, 19992006.

By reviewing the reported literature, it can be concluded that

the causes of most occupational accidents in the construction
industry are largely attributable to management negligence or
inadequate worker safety awareness. The small construction enter-
prises consistently have a higher accident occurring rate than large
construction enterprises, and this may mainly attribute to less ade-
quate management skills, less ability to implement health and
safety works, insufcient worker safety awareness, failure in labor
safety laws and regulations compliance, and insufcient safety
protection measures and facilities (Haslam et al., 2005; Tam
et al., 2004; Fabiano et al., 2004; Chi et al., 2004; Saloniemi and
Oksanen, 1998; Kisner and Fosbroke, 1991). This study employed
the statistical methods of correlation coefcient analysis and ANO-
VA to explore the correlations between causes for accident occur-
rence for small construction enterprises.
The database used in this study consisted of 1546 occupational
accident records in the construction industry from 2000 to 2007
(as summarized in Table 1), and 800 of these records were for small
construction enterprises, which is dened by a company with less
than 10 employees. All the other records were for large construc-
tion enterprises. All the collected records were categorized based
on the classication criteria proposed by Taiwan central governing
agency.
2. Methods and materials
2.1. Case study background
Taiwan has a population of 23 millions approximately, and
638,000 construction workers on average were employed in Tai-
wan construction industry between 2000 and 2006. Due to the
promotion of public engineering projects, the number of workers
Fig. 2. Worker education level in construction industry, 20002007.
employed by the construction industry was increased to 693,000
in 2006. However, only 237,869 of them had purchased labor
insurance, which is required by law, indicating that more than
65% construction workers were not insured while they were work-
ing on the construction sites.
Taiwans Labor Safety and Health Act prescribes that employers
must provide workers with at least six hours of training and the
workers also have to pass a health and safety test before working.
Also, the construction enterprises should appoint the safety man-
agement personnel, determine working rules, perform training,
and implement health and safety self-inspection program. How-
ever, regardless of the education levels and experiences of the
workers, if six hours of training to all employees may ensure suf-
cient employees health and safety knowledge to reduce dangerous
actions and to identify hazards remains questionable (Tam et al.,
2004; Hasle et al., 2009).
Among 11,601 construction enterprises in Taiwan in 2008, 8017
(i.e., 69%) of them were small construction enterprises. As for the
education background of the construction workers employed be-
tween 2001 and 2007, only a few of them had bachelor degree,
and many of them have junior high school or even lower education
level as shown in Fig. 2, resulting in low safety awareness and
inability to identify hazards while working on site generally.
According to Taiwan Bureau of Labor Insurance, the average num-
ber of labor insurance payment for occupational accidents was
13.388 per 1000 persons in the construction industry, among
which injury or illness accounted for 12.511, disability accounted

Table 1
Major occupational accidents causing death or injury at companies of different sizes, 20002007.

Company size (number of employees) Year Total

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
Under 10 78 122 84 117 99 102 72 126 800
1029 36 66 65 58 49 28 36 45 383
3099 28 27 10 25 14 15 22 16 157
100299 21 10 36 12 13 9 9 6 116
300499 0 16 3 3 3 6 5 0 36
Over 500 3 5 9 17 6 1 12 1 54
Total 166 246 207 232 184 161 156 194 1546
700 C.-W. Cheng et al. / Safety Science 48 (2010) 698707
for 0.715, and death accounted for 0.161 in 2006. The total labor
insurance payment amounted to 7.902 billion New Taiwan Dol-
lars (NTD) accumulatively between 2000 and 2006 (1 USD 
30.49 NTD), which also implied that the occurrence of occupational
accident for construction industry in Taiwan is a serious issue.
In Taiwan, small construction enterprises may only contract for
the projects with monetary values less than NTD 22.5 million
annually regulated by law. In order to increase prots, many small
construction enterprises are often subcontracted by the general
contractors which are responsible for larger public engineering
projects.
2.2. Research scheme and statistical approaches
In this study, the data of occupational accidents and related
company background were obtained from the central governing
agency, and were categorized according to the accident types,
sources of injury, hazardous conditions, body part of injury (Lortie
and Rizzo, 1999; Chi et al., 2004). The classication criteria em-
ployed proposed was proposed by Taiwan central governing
agency, which classify occupational accidents in terms of the nat-
ure of the injury, accident type, and source of injury by adopting
the standards from accident classication scheme of American Na-
tional Standards Institute (ANSI) standards Z.16.2-1995 (ANSI,
1995). The detailed discussions of this classication system can
be found in the study by Lortie and Rizzo (1999). The cumulative
distribution of collected data was obtained using descriptive statis-
tical approach. Subsequently, a two-way contingency table was
constructed to calculate the distribution of potential factors affect-
ing the occurrence of occupational accidents in order to explore the
relationship between safety management and occupational acci-
dents for small construction enterprises (Olafsson et al., 2006).
These factors were further analyzed through the correlation coef-
cient analysis followed by ANOVA analysis. In the correlation coef-
cient analysis, Cramers V and Phi (u) coefcient analysis, based
on the Chi-square method, were employed to further examine
the relationship among investigated factors (Moon et al., 2007;
Chi et al., 2004; Goil, 1999; Kurtz, 1999; Lyman et al., 1986). ANO-
VA is used to explore the relationship between the analytical re-
sponse variable and the classicatory explanatory variable.
Tukeys Honestly Signicant Differences (HSD) test in post hoc
Pre-processing of data from construction industry occupational accident database
Analysis and investigation of literature
Confirmation of
Research methods
research topic
Correlation coefficient analysis
(Cramers V, Phi coefficient, Chi-square)
Small construction
ANOVA enterprise
Tukey's HSD Test Comparison &
interpretation
Determination of significance of correlation
Big construction
coefficients between factors and correlations between
factors and accidents causing death and injury enterprise
1.Adjustment of management focal points and
improvement measures
2. Feedback of accident knowledge and information
Fig. 3. Research method owchart.
testing was employed to verify if the data is the signicantly differ-
ent from one another. By calculating the difference among catego-
rized data, the response variable could appropriately serve as a
segmentation variable to explain the classicatory variable. The
number of annual occupational accidents during 20002007 was
taken as the response variable to examine the signicance of
explanatory variables such as worker age, project type (e.g., build-
ing construction project or civil engineering project), project size,
unsafe act, unsafe conditions, and project jurisdiction. This method
allows safety management ofcers to prioritize signicant safety
works and to formulate major supervisory tasks.
The research framework of this study is shown in Fig. 3. The
software used to perform the statistical calculation in this study
was Statistica Data Miner V8.0 developed by the StatSoft Company.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Analysis of occupational accidents using descriptive statistics
The causes for occupational accident occurrence for small con-
struction enterprises in Taiwan were analyzed, and the results
are summarized in Table 2. For comparison, also shown in this ta-
ble are the similar analytical results for large construction enter-
prises. Among 800 occupational accident records analyzed, it was
found that (1) the workers involved in occupational accidents
had working experience less than one month in 39% of the accident
records analyzed, and 12% of which occurred on the 1st working
day on the work sites for the involved workers, (2) 20% of these
accidents involved temporary workers, (3) 69% of these accidents
were related to non-government projects, (4) 56% of these acci-
dents were for the engineering projects with less than NTD 50 mil-
lion contract value, (5) 57% of the accidents were related to
building construction projects, (6) the workers involved in 49% of
the analyzed accidents were in the age range between 25 and 44,
(7) the employer did not provide sufcient personal protection to
workers in 47% of the analyzed occupational accidents, (8) the per-
sonal protection equipments were not correctly used in 53% of
these accidents, (9) the safeguards or hazard warning signs were
ignored or not used in the working environment in 41% of these
accidents, and (10) falls and tumbles are the common accident
types in 58% of these accidents. From these results, it can be con-
cluded that health and safety management is less adequate for
small construction enterprises compared to that of large construc-
tion enterprises.
From the analytical results summarized in Table 2, the small
construction enterprises were not as effective in implementing
these measures compared to the large construction enterprises.
As mentioned earlier, the projects are not easy to acquire for the
small construction enterprises owing to the intense competition.
Once the project was implemented, many temporary workers were
hired and not trained properly to obtain sufcient health and
safety knowledge. Besides, the small construction enterprises tried
to maximize their prots by implementing projects with minimum
safety that barely meets regulation. Therefore, the workers (includ-
ing temporary ones) worked at the unsafe conditions and accidents
may happen at any time. The health and safety program imple-
mentation ratio for the small construction enterprises compared
to the large ones was approximately 3:7. The small construction
enterprises contracting on non-government projects had an even
higher occupational accident rate than larger enterprises.
The analysis of occupational accidents for small construction
enterprises revealed that a certain portion of occupational acci-
dents involved the workers with less than one month working
experience for a specic project (i.e., 39% of 800 accidents
analyzed for small construction enterprises, and 26% of 746
 C.-W. Cheng et al. / Safety Science 48 (2010) 698707 701

Table 2
Distribution of factors inuencing occupational accidents at large and small construction enterprises, 20002007.

Factor Item Small construction Large construction

enterprise (800 records)% enterprise (746 records)%
Health and safety management work Health and safety personnel assigned 55 86
Health and safety personnel not 45 14
assigned
Education and training implemented 26 73
Education and training not 74 27
implemented
Health and safety autonomous 27 64
inspection implemented
Health and safety autonomous 73 36
inspection not implemented
Health and safety rules determined 25 75
Health and safety rules not determined 75 25
Hazard notication work implemented 63 60
Hazard notication work not 37 40
implemented
Negotiation organization work 65 49
implemented
Negotiation organization work not 35 51
implemented
Project jurisdiction Public project 31 61
Non-government project 69 39
Condition of victim Death 91 83
Injury 9 17
Gender Male 95 95
Female 5 5
Project contract amount Less than NTD 5 million 36 8
NTD 550 million 20 12
NTD 50500 million 15 22
Over NTD 500 million 4 34
Not recorded 25 24
Interval between worker arrival at worksite and accident Less than 1 day 12 6
(work experience for a given project)
Less than 1 month (excluding 1st day) 27 20
16 months 21 27
6 months to 1 year 7 11
More than 1 year 6 11
Not recorded 27 26
Unsafe condition The employer does not provide personal 47 35
protection equipment
Unsafe working environment 17 13
Improper management and instructions 15 20
Use of hazardous methods or 13 24
procedures
Unsafe equipment or materials 7 7
Other situations 1 1
Unsafe act Failure to correctly use personal 53 42
protection equipment
Failure to adopt safeguards or ignoring 41 50
hazard warning signs
Lack of attention to footing 5 5
Improper use of equipment 1 2
Worker type Temporary worker 20 18
Form worker 11 11
Rebar worker 7 9
Steel worker 7 8
Masonry 7 3
Electrician 6 7
Construction machinery operator 5 6
Foreman 7 9
Renovator 5 1
Concrete nisher 2 1
Scaffold worker 1 2
Other 7 3
Worker age 1524 years 9 7
2544 years 49 60
4564 years 34 31
Over 65 years 3 2
Not recorded 5 0
Project type Building construction project 57 41

(continued on next page)

702 C.-W. Cheng et al. / Safety Science 48 (2010) 698707
Table 2 (continued)
Factor Item
Road project
Bridge project
Railways project
Circuit conduit project
Removal, repair, or reinforcing project
Other project
Occupational accident type Falls and tumbles
Collapse of object
Fall of object
Electrical shock
Other
Note: 1 USD  30.4900 NTD (5/5/2008).
accidents for large construction enterprises). Further analysis on
the occupational accident data indicated that 12% of the acci-
dents occurred on the 1st working day for the workers for small
construction enterprises (shown in Fig 4), and these involving
workers were temporary workers with the ages between 45
and 64. As mentioned earlier, this is possibly due to the fact that
insufcient health and safety training were implemented for the
small construction enterprises.
The result from the present study also indicated that the age
group involved in most occupational accidents analyzed for small
construction enterprises (i.e., 49% of the analyzed accidents) was
the workers with the ages between 25 and 44. However, owing
to the variations in labor structure and the demands of the con-
struction industry, the number of workers in this age group is
among the highest according to the statistical results from 1546 re-
ported construction accident cases. This result is consistent with
the nding of the study by Macedo and Silva (2004). Although
most occupational accidents involve workers in this age range, it
is genuinely inappropriate to conclude that workers having ages
within this range are considered as the most dangerous working
group because construction workers in this age range are the main
labor in the market. Further evaluation on the risks of occupational
accidents for various age groups of workers using the labor insur-
Fig. 4. Distribution of workers ages and work types on the 1st working day for small construction enterprises.
Small construction Large construction
enterprise (800 records)% enterprise (746 records)%
6 15
2 6
1 5
4 4
6 1
24 29
58 40
17 22
3 8
8 8
14 22
ance data from the Bureau of Labor Insurance of Taiwan Govern-
ment revealed that the highest normalized rates of death and
injury (shown in Fig. 5) were among workers with ages above
60. This nding is consistent with previous studies which reported
that elder workers (over 55 years of age) have a higher risk to in-
volve in an occupational accident (Chi et al., 2004; Siu et al.,
2003; Jeong, 1998; Laamme and Menckel, 1995).
From the results of the present study, the workers employed by
small construction enterprises usually have poor qualications.
Many workers only have only junior high school education or be-
low as shown in Fig. 2, which may cause the workers insufciently
aware of safety hazards resulting in a higher rate of occupational
accident occurrence. Further understanding on the correlation be-
tween work type and worker education level would be helpful in
investigating the causes for occupational accident occurrence.
However, the 1546 records collected from central governing
agency did not include the work type information, and the labor
insurance records from Taipei County of construction unionization
(i.e., 3045 cases between years 2000 and 2007) was adopted to ana-
lyze the relationship between work type and worker education le-
vel. The results showed that 56% of the construction workers had
the education level of elementary school, and 24% of which were
above the age of 55. For the workers above the age of 55, the work
 C.-W. Cheng et al. / Safety Science 48 (2010) 698707 703

types mostly were masonry and manual labors (shown in Fig. 6).
Additionally, the majority of workers in this age group also engaged
in temporary work and had low level of education. This nding is
consistent with previous ndings concerning work hazards faced
by temporary workers (Haslam et al., 2005; Fabiano et al., 2004;
Saloniemi and Oksanen, 1998; Kisner and Fosbroke, 1991). In sum-
mary, the high accident occurring rate for the temporary workers of
small construction enterprises may be due to the fact that most of
the involving workers have low education level and high tendency
in ignoring required health and safety practices on the work sites.

3.2. Factors causing occupational accidents using correlation

coefcient analysis

In order to investigate the correlation among various factors

Fig. 5. Worker major occupational accidents per 1000 persons by age, 20002007.
Fig. 6. Distribution of workers age and worker types for the Construction Union of
Taipei County, 20002007.
resulting in the occupational accidents, this study employed pair-
wise analysis to investigate the accident-resulting factors for small
construction enterprises, and the result is shown in Table 3. The
correlation coefcient u greater than 0.3 between factors would
be regarded with signicance for the two factors (p < 0.005). In Ta-
ble 3, the high level of correlations were found between project
type and accident type (u = 0.855, p < 0.005), work type and acci-
dent type (u = 0.616, p < 0.005), and unsafe condition and accident
type (u = 0.849, p < 0.005).
For the effectiveness of training, the correlation coefcient be-
tween training and unsafe working behavior was low without sig-
nicance (u = 0.023, p > 0.05). A similar result was observed for the
large construction enterprises (u = 0.072, p > 0.05) (see Table 4). In
real practice, many small construction enterprises provided proofs
of organizing health and safety management to the project owners
when signing contracts. However, this did not ensure the improve-
ment of unsafe condition in the working environment for small
construction enterprises (u = 0.059, p > 0.05). Although the correla-
tion value for large construction enterprises reached the level of
signicance (u = 0.127, p < 0.05), the coefcient was still relatively
low compared to others. This result revealed that the pre-training
implemented by Taiwans construction industry did not effectively
prevent the occupational accidents from happening.
The result shown in Table 2 that most small construction enter-
prises (74%) does not provide required health and safety training
which resulted in the potential risk of unsafe working behaviors,
a key factor for occupational accident occurrence. Empirical sur-
veys revealed that most inspection reports concerning health and

Table 3
Analysis of correlation coefcients of factors inuencing occupational accidents at small enterprises.

Factor 1 Factor 2 Chi-square df. p-Value u Cramers V Contingency coefcient

**
Worker age Work type 113.679 44 0.000 0.377 0.189 0.353
Project type 100.321 60 0.001** 0.354 0.177 0.334
Unsafe act 25.042 12 0.015* 0.177 0.102 0.174
Work experience 375.496 28 0.000** 0.685 0.343 0.565
Unsafe act Unsafe condition 808.511 15 0.000** 1.000 0.580 0.709
Education and training 0.425 3 0.935 0.023 0.023 0.023
Hazard notication work 10.632 3 0.014* 0.115 0.115 0.115
Unsafe condition Project type 138.276 75 0.000** 0.416 0.186 0.384
Accident type 576.679 70 0.000** 0.849 0.380 0.647
Negotiation organization management 2.774 5 0.735 0.059 0.059 0.059
Accident type Hazard notication work 28.532 14 0.012* 0.189 0.189 0.186
Education and training 37.218 14 0.001** 0.216 0.216 0.211
Unsafe act 334.630 42 0.000** 0.647 0.373 0.543
Assignment of health and safety personnel 69.487 14 0.000** 0.295 0.295 0.283
Work type 303.062 154 0.000** 0.616 0.186 0.524
Project type Project contract amount 256.282 105 0.000** 0.566 0.214 0.493
Accident type 584.649 210 0.000** 0.855 0.229 0.650
*
Indicates a signicant difference, p-value < 0.05.
**
Indicates a signicant difference, p-value < 0.005.
704 C.-W. Cheng et al. / Safety Science 48 (2010) 698707

Table 4
Analysis of correlation coefcients of factors inuencing occupational accidents at large enterprises.

Factor1 Factor2 Chi-square df. p-Values u Cramers V Contingency coefcient

**
Worker age Work type 119.873 44 0.000 0.401 0.200 0.372
Project type 64.152 64 0.471 0.293 0.147 0.281
Unsafe act 12.581 12 0.400 0.130 0.750 0.129
Work experience 97.344 28 0.000** 0.361 0.181 0.340
Unsafe act Unsafe condition 721.104 15 0.000** 0.998 0.569 0.701
Education and training 3.889 3 0.273 0.072 0.072 0.072
Hazard notication work 15.007 3 0.002** 0.142 0.142 0.142
Unsafe conditions Project type 184.776 80 0.000** 0.498 0.223 0.446
Accident type 454.048 75 0.000** 0.780 0.349 0.615
Negotiation organization management 12.015 5 0.034* 0.127 0.127 0.126
Accident type Hazard notication work 27.723 15 0.023* 0.193 0.193 0.189
Education and training 47.165 15 0.000** 0.251 0.251 0.244
Unsafe act 261.499 45 0.000** 0.592 0.342 0.509
Assignment of health and safety personnel 45.964 15 0.000** 0.248 0.248 0.241
Work type 369.633 165 0.000** 0.704 0.212 0.576
Project type Project contract amount 275.007 64 0.000** 0.607 0.303 0.519
Accident type 793.601 24 0.000** 1.000 0.266 0.718

Note: 1 USD  30.4900 NTD (5/5/2008).

*
Indicates a signicant difference, p-value < 0.05.
**
Indicates a signicant difference, p-value < 0.005.

Table 5
One-way ANOVA analysis of factors inuencing occupational accidents at small enterprises.

Cell No. Item Mean value Cell No.

{1} {2} {3} {4}
Worker age
1 1524 years 9.875 0.000** 0.000** 0.413
2 2544 years 48.625 0.000** 0.015* 0.000**
3 4564 years 33.875 0.000** 0.015* 0.000**
4 Over 65 years 2.750 0.413 0.000** 0.000**
Project contract amount
1 Less than NTD 5 million 35.625 0.006* 0.000** 0.000**
2 NTD 550 million 20.250 0.006* 0.604 0.003**
3 NTD 50500 million 15.000 0.000** 0.604 0.054
4 Over NTD 500 million 3.625 0.000** 0.003** 0.054
Unsafe act
1 Lack of attention to footing 4.750 0.000** 0.000** 0.912
2 Failure in correctly using personal protection equipment 53.000 0.000** 0.103 0.000**
3 Failure in adopting safeguards or ignoring hazard warning signs 40.750 0.000** 0.103 0.000**
4 Improper use of equipment 1.375 0.912 0.000** 0.000**
Unsafe conditions
1 Unsafe working environment 17.375 0.994 0.926 0.000**
2 Improper management for instructions 14.875 0.994 0.999 0.000**
3 Use of hazardous methods or procedures 13.000 0.926 0.998 0.000**
4 Employer does not provide workers personal protection equipment 47.000 0.000** 0.000** 0.000**

Note: 1 USD  30.4900 NTD (5/5/2008).

*
Indicates a signicant difference, p-value < 0.05.
**
Indicates a signicant difference, p-value < 0.005.

safety works performed by the small construction enterprises were
written perfunctorily to deal with the inspection units, and the
emphasis on maintaining work safety was insufcient compared
with that in other leading countries (Tam et al., 2004; Fabiano
et al., 2004). The measures included scrimping on health and safety
facilities for cost-saving, hiring non-professional workers and
health and safety personnel, and ignoring the risky factors in the
working environment. Moreover, the fact that employers have
poor health and safety managing skills and often neglect health
and safety training in the workplaces makes an even greater con-
tribution to the persistently high rate for occupational accident
occurrence for Taiwans small construction enterprises.
In Tables 5 and 6, there is the signicant correlation between
worker age and unsafe act for small construction enterprises
(u = 0.177, p < 0.05), but not for larger construction enterprises
(u = 0.130, p > 0.05). This nding suggested a connection between
the occupational accidents attributable to the elder workers and
lack of safe working behavior for small construction enterprises.
Similarly, a signicant correlation between worker age and type
of project was observed for small construction enterprises
(u = 0.354, p < 0.005), but not for large enterprises (u = 0.293,
p > 0.05). This result implied that small construction enterprises
should focus the health and safety management and pre-training
content on worker ages when participating in subcontracting jobs.
3.3. ANOVA analysis of factors resulting in occupational accidents
Based on the results obtained from correlation coefcient anal-
ysis, ANOVA was used to further investigate resulting factors
responsible for occupational accidents for small construction
 C.-W. Cheng et al. / Safety Science 48 (2010) 698707 705

Table 6
One-way ANOVA analysis of factors inuencing occupational accidents at large enterprises.

Cell No. Item Mean value Cell No.

{1} {2} {3} {4}
Worker age
1 1524 years 6.125 0.000** 0.002** 0.874
2 2544 years 56.375 0.000** 0.000** 0.000**
3 4564 years 28.625 0.002** 0.000 **
0.000**
4 Over 65 years 1.875 0.87 0.000** 0.000**
Project contract amount
1 Less than NTD 5 million 7.375 0.780 0.026 0.000**
2 NTD 550 million 11.250 0.780 0.173 0.000**
3 NTD 50500 million 20.250 0.026* 0.173 0.041*
4 Over NTD 500 million 32.250 0.000** 0.000** 0.041*
Unsafe act
1 Lack of attention to footing 4.875 0.000** 0.000* 0.960
2 Failure in correctly using personal protection equipment 39.125 0.000** 0.459 0.000**
3 Failure in adopting safeguards or ignoring hazard warning signs 47.000 0.000** 0.459 0.000**
4 Improper use of equipment 2.250 0.960 0.000** 0.000**
Unsafe conditions
1 Unsafe working environment 12.500 0.730 0.291 0.001**
2 Improper management for instructions 18.875 0.730 0.976 0.047*
3 Use of hazardous methods or procedures 22.250 0.291 0.976 0.229
4 Employer does not provide workers personal protection equipment 32.625 0.001** 0.047* 0.229

Note: 1 USD  30.4900 NTD (5/5/2008).

*
Indicates a signicant difference, p-value < 0.05.
**
Indicates a signicant difference, p-value < 0.005.

Table 7
Results of Tukey HSD test for two-way ANOVA of small enterprises.

Cell No. Project category Accident type Mean value {1} {2} {3} {4}
** **
1 New building project Falls and tumbles 34.500 0.000 0.000 0.000**
2 New building project Fall (collapse) of object 10.250 0.000** 0.001** 0.873
3 Sporadic repair project Falls and tumbles 21.875 0.000** 0.001** 0.000**
4 Sporadic repair project Fall (collapse) of object 6.500 0.000** 0.873 0.000**
Project type Project amount Mean value {1} {2} {3} {4}
1 Building construction Less than NTD 5 million 19.125 0.383 0.000** 0.000**
project
2 Building construction NTD 550 million 11.750 0.383 0.098 0.136
project
3 Civil engineering project Less than NTD 5 million 2.000 0.000** 0.098 1.000
4 Civil engineering project NTD 550 million 2.500 0.000** 0.136 1.000
Project jurisdiction Project amount Mean value {1} {2} {3} {4}
1 Non-government project Less than NTD 5 million 27.125 0.000** 0.000** 0.000**
2 Non-government project NTD 550 million 10.500 0.000** 0.990 1.000
3 Public project Less than NTD 5 million 8.500 0.000** 0.990 0.964
4 Public project NTD 550 million 11.000 0.000** 1.000 0.964
Project type Unsafe conditions Mean value {1} {2} {3} {4}
1 Building construction Employer does not require workers to use personal protection 30.750 0.000** 0.000** 0.000**
project equipment
2 Building construction Unsafe working environment 9.125 0.000** 0.396 0.347
project
3 Civil engineering project Employer does not require workers to use personal protection 2.000 0.000** 0.396 1.000
equipment
4 Civil engineering project Unsafe working environment 1.750 0.000** 0.347 1.000

Note: 1 USD  30.4900 NTD (5/5/2008).

*
Indicates a signicant difference, p-value < 0.05.
**
Indicates a signicant difference, p-value < 0.005.

enterprises. The results shown in Table 5 revealed that workers in-
volved in occupational accidents for small construction enterprises
were mostly in the 2544 age group (mean value: 48.625,
p < 0.005), followed by the 4564 age group (mean value: 33.875,
p < 0.05). In the regards to unsafe conditions and unsafe working
behavior, the causes of occupational accidents were the lack of per-
sonal protection equipments for workers provided by employers
(mean value: 47.000, p < 0.005), workers failure in using personal
protection equipments correctly (mean value: 53.000, p < 0.005),
and failure in adopting safeguards or ignoring hazard warning
signs in the working environment (mean value: 47.000,
p < 0.005) as shown in Table 6. The ndings were related to the
construction enterprises failing to implement health and safety
training for the workers. With this regard, long-term safety educa-
tion and training work seems necessary to ensure that every par-
ticipating worker can effectively perform self-inspection before,
706 C.-W. Cheng et al. / Safety Science 48 (2010) 698707

Table 8
Results of Tukey HSD test for two-way ANOVA of large enterprises.

Cell No. Project category Accident type Mean value {1} {2} {3} {4}
** **
1 New building project Falls and tumbles 29.500 0.001 0.001 0.001**
2 New building project Fall (collapse) of object 15.750 0.001** 0.193 0.001**
3 Sporadic repair project Falls and tumbles 7.625 0.001** 0.193 0.981
4 Sporadic repair project Fall (collapse) of object 4.250 0.001** 0.001** 0.981
Project type Project amount Mean value {1} {2} {3} {4}
1 Building construction Over NTD 500 million 10.125 1.000 0.158 0.193
project
2 Building construction NTD 50500 million 11.125 1.000 0.158 1.000
project
3 Civil engineering project Over NTD 500 million 17.875 0.158 0.158 0.000**
4 Civil engineering project NTD 50500 million 3.625 0.193 1.000 0.000**
Project jurisdiction Project amount Mean value {1} {2} {3} {4}
1 Non-government project Over NTD 500 million 7.625 1.000 0.000** 0.755
2 Non-government project NTD 50500 million 8.250 1.000 0.000** 0.999
3 Public project Over NTD 500 million 24.625 0.000** 0.000** 0.000**
4 Public project NTD 50500 million 12.000 0.755 0.999 0.000**
Project type Unsafe conditions Mean value {1} {2} {3} {4}
1 Building construction Employer does not require workers to use personal protection 18.375 0.000** 0.000** 0.047*
project equipment
2 Building construction Use of hazardous methods and procedures 7.000 0.000** 1.000 0.988
project
3 Civil engineering project Employer does not require workers to use personal protection 5.500 0.000** 1.000 0.833
equipment
4 Civil engineering project Use of hazardous methods and procedures 9.750 0.047* 0.988 0.833

Note: 1 USD  30.4900 NTD (5/5/2008).

*
Indicates a signicant difference, p-value < 0.05.
**
Indicates a signicant difference, p-value < 0.005.

Table 9
Comparison of safety management work implementation in building construction projects less than 5 million NTD value performed by large and small construction enterprises.

Comparison Item Health and safety management (%)

Small enterprise Education training Implemented 15 Not implemented 85
Large enterprise 31 69
Small enterprise Hazard notication work Implemented 69 Not implemented 31
Large enterprise 66 34
Small enterprise Negotiation organization work Implemented 75 Not implemented 25
Large enterprise 72 28
Small enterprise Assignment of health and safety personnel Assigned 29 Not assigned 71
Large enterprise 63 38
Small enterprise Health and safety autonomous inspection work Implemented 16 Not implemented 84
Large enterprise 48 52
Small enterprise Determination of safety work rules Determined 12 Not determined 88
Large enterprise 28 72

Note: 1 USD  30.4900 NTD (5/5/2008).

during, and after each task, and can promptly remedy any potential
hazards in the environment.
The falls and tumbles was the most common type of occupa-
tional accident for small construction enterprises contracting on
new building projects (mean value: 34.500, p < 0.005 shown in Ta-
ble 7), and was also the most common accident type when the
enterprises engages in sporadic repair projects (mean value:
21.875, p < 0.005). This result indicated that small construction
enterprises had inadequate safety management when working in
high places, near openings or not using personal protection equip-
ments. Occupational accidents occurred most often when working
on non-government projects and contract value less than 5 million
NTD (mean value: 27.125, p < 0.005) for small construction enter-
prises. This is because, in Taiwan, the non-government projects
contracted to small construction enterprises inevitably have nar-
row prot margin, which induces the contractors to ignore safety
protections and self-inspection works, and ultimately results in a
high rate of occupational accident occurrence. Particularly, the
highest rate of occupational accidents occurrence is when the
employers do not provide personal protection equipments to the
workers in building construction projects (mean value: 30.750,
p < 0.005). In addition, a inspection on the distribution of occupa-
tional accidents for large construction enterprises (shown in Table
8) revealed that the most common type of accident was falls in
new building projects (mean value: 29.500, p < 0.005) and public
projects with contract value more than 500 million NTD (mean va-
lue: 24.625, p < 0.005). These results indicated that, in the case of
different project jurisdictions, project types, and operating stan-
dards, safety management efforts should be focused on preventing
hazards by ensuring that the workers correctly wear and use per-
sonal protection equipments.
Using building construction projects with contract value less
than 5 million NTD for small construction enterprises as an exam-
ple, the implementation of health and safety management is
strongly related to the occupational accident occurrence as shown
in Table 9. The labor health and safety management for small
 C.-W. Cheng et al. / Safety Science 48 (2010) 698707
construction enterprises engaged in projects with a contract
amount of less than NTD 5 million exhibited the following inade-
quacies: (1) 85% failed to implement worker training, (2) 84% failed
to perform self-inspection tasks, and (3) 88% failed to implement
safe working rules. Although the corresponding gures for large
construction enterprises were even lower (approximately 28
72%), it still indicated that the implementation of health and safety
management for large enterprises also leaves much to be desired.
These results evidently supported that the main cause of occupa-
tional accidents for small construction enterprises is the failure
in implementing health and safety management.
4. Conclusions
This study investigated the resulting characteristics of occupa-
tional accidents for small construction enterprises in Taiwan based
on the 1546 collected records between 2000 and 2007. The results
illustrated several serious problems of safety and health manage-
ment for small construction enterprises. These problems included
not to value the importance of safety measures implemented on
the workplaces, not to practice sufcient safety education for
new workers, not to hire well-trained safety and health personnel
to implement safety measures. The correlation coefcient analysis
revealed that the occupational accident occurrence was highly re-
lated to the workers age, worker type, and workers unsafe act and
unsafe condition. After the standardization of collected records, it
is found that the elder labors (i.e., above 60 years of age) had high-
er percentage to involve in an occupational accident because most
of these labors were with low education level and engaged in tem-
porary works. Through ANOVA analysis, it is also found that most
of the occupational accidents for small construction enterprises oc-
curred in non-government construction projects with contract va-
lue less than NTD 5 millions. The most occurring occupational
accident type was fall and collapse of object. In Taiwan, the sur-
vival for a small construction enterprise is a critical issue because
of high competition, difculty in contract acquirement, unstable
sources of labors and limited budget for health and safety measure
implementation. These situations resulted in the high possibility
for accident occurrence compared to large construction enter-
prises. From the results of this present study, it is found that the
promotion of heath and safety management for small construction
enterprises became critical.
Acknowledgements
This study is supported by the Institute of Occupational Safety &
Health (IOSH) under research Grant IOSH97-S327. The data used in
this study is provided by the Inspection Ofce, Council of Labor Af-
fairs, Executive Yuan.
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