RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PROJECT SAFETY PERFORMANCE AND EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE OF SITE MANAGERS IN CONSTRUCTION ORGANISATIONS: A STUDY OF SELECTED REGIONS IN GHANA

ABSTRACT

Several developing countries at various levels of socio- economic development have recognized the need and importance of taking measures to improve the safety performance of their construction industry. One of the means to this end has been the use of effective site managers in project execution. The aim of this study is to empirically examine the impact of site managers’ emotional intelligence on construction project safety performance while concurrently assessing the impact of teamwork as moderating variable on association between site managers’ emotional intelligence on construction project safety performance. The study employed descriptive quantitative survey approach. Questionnaire was the main data collection tool. The data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics such as factor analysis, Pearson product moment correlation coefficient as well as multiple regression techniques for analyzing relationships between variables. The survey results suggest that site managers studied possessed adequately, relationship management skills, social awareness skills, self-management skills and self-awareness skills of emotional intelligence. The study further found that relationship management skills, and social awareness skills of site managers studied have greater impact on construction project safety performance, while self-management skills, and selfawareness skills of emotional intelligence have relatively low impact on construction project safety performance. More so, the study revealed that teamwork moderates the association between emotional intelligence and construction project safety performance. The study concludes that construction organisations should consider integrating the assessment of emotional intelligence, and team building skills in their human resource recruitment and development programs to improve upon their project safety performance.