Study On The Influence Of Leader-Member Exchange Relationship On Employee Safety Voice Behavior In Construction Projects

Construction is an important industry in China and how to improve safety performance has always been a hot topic in construction safety.Safety promotion(i.e.employees making suggestions on project safety issues)contributes to the effective prevention of safety hazards,reduction of accidents and improvement of project safety performance.However,there is some interpersonal risk involved.Due to the many interests at stake,most employees prefer to remain cautious or even silent until the cause of a safety incident is established.Therefore,there is an urgent need to address the issue of fostering employees’ willingness to speak up in favour of safety.Since leaders can have a great influence on employees’ safety behaviour,and since the leader-member exchange relationship is an important interpersonal resource for employees in the organisation,this paper selects the leader-member exchange relationship(social exchange between leaders and members based on equal and reciprocal relationships)as the antecedent variable and adds psychological safety as a mediating variable to further examine the influence of the leader-member exchange relationship on safety construct behaviour.In this paper,the mechanism of the leader-member relationship in exchanging information on safety construction behaviour is further investigated in order to provide a theoretical reference for promoting members’ safety construction behaviour in construction projects.Firstly,based on a review and analysis of a large body of literature,a theoretical model and research hypotheses were constructed based on leader-member exchange theory and social cognitive theory,and the research idea was "leader-member relationship→psychological sense of safety→safety constructing behaviour" from the individual employee level.Secondly,a questionnaire was developed on the basis of established national and international scales.Valid research data were collected from 210 project employees in the field of construction work and the sample data were analysed by SPSS and AMOS for basic situation analysis,reliability analysis,descriptive statistics and normality tests.The research hypotheses and theoretical models were then validated using multiple regression analysis and structural equation modelling.The study results showed that:(1)leadership-member exchange relationships in construction projects can positively influence employees’ safety counselling behaviour and that employees are more willing to participate in safety counselling in high-quality leadership-member exchange relationships;(2)leadership-member exchange relationships can positively influence psychological safety and good leadership-member exchange relationships can help employees to improve their psychological safety;(3)psychological safety plays a role in mediating the relationship between leadership-member exchange and safety counselling.The significance of this study is that it explores the various factors that influence safety constructive behaviour,facilitates the exploration of the relationship between leadership and member exchange,psychological safety and the topic of safety constructive behaviour,improves the scope of research on safety constructive behaviour and provides new ideas for existing safety management in construction.The article also provides practical guidance on promoting project safety outcomes and building good organisational relationships.Figure[10] table [21] reference [76]...