Investigating the potential relationships between project manager skills and project safety performance

Abstract

Past research on construction project safety has mainly been focused on safety risks, safety culture, and safety system development. This research aims to reveal project manager skills that could influence project safety performance. It is proposed that project managers need to have four essential skills, namely conceptual, human, political, and technical skill. Through a comprehensive review of relevant literatures, this research argues that project manager skills influence project manager’s safety leadership, which ultimately influence project safety performance. A theoretical framework has been developed and future research will focus on collecting empirical data to test these relationships.