Analysis of Safety Management Characteristics Using Network Analysis of CEO Messages in the Construction Industry

Abstract

Chief executive officer (CEO) messages are important in communicating with employees. In terms of sustainability management, it is important to study these messages for their finance and safety content; however, previous studies have focused mostly on the financial aspects. Therefore, our approach is to: (1) focus on safety management, (2) use text mining and network analysis to extract the keywords emphasized by the CEOs, (3) analyze safety management characteristics through factor mapping and network analysis, (4) make recommendations. When the results from the CEO communications of 100 global construction companies were reviewed, keywords including “management”, “value”, “employee”, “system”, “project”, “culture”, “new”, “occupational”, “practice”, and “basis” were deduced. The words “management”, “employee”, and “culture” were the common keywords considered important by CEOs and were highlighted in literature reviews as significant words. Both the deduced keywords and the words deemed important by the CEOs have similar connotations. Motivation, Rules and Regulations, and Resources and Equipment were the factors that exhibited the highest centrality, while Culture and Climate had a structurally high connection. Based on our results, we suggest selecting appropriate words to form consensus with the workers, supplementing the factors related to safety investment with low centrality, and using direct “safety” words, and other relevant words.