Effect of Safety-Oriented HR and Climate Practices and Project Leadership on Perceived Accident Prevention: Testing Vision 2030 Institutional Pressure and Alignment as a Moderator

INTRODUCTION

The construction industry is among the most hazardous in the world, and occupational risks and accident rates have not decreased despite recent safety improvements. The cost of workplace injuries and accidents is still too high, with almost 3 million fatalities and approximately 400 million non-fatal injuries reported each year (Gaudiaut, 2026). The construction industry in Saudi Arabia is estimated to incur an estimated cost of accidents at $91,940 per accident, which is part of an estimated economic cost of $261.11 million annually that includes hospital bills, compensation, and loss of productivity (Umar & Umeokafor, 2021). This has been a major issue, especially in large-scale infrastructure programs where complex risk environments, diverse workforces, and dynamic activities increase the vulnerability of safety.

Safety climate is a core driver of safety outcomes, as the literature highlights that management commitment, training, communication, and accountability are dimensions of safety climate associated with safer workplace behaviours and lower accident rates in the construction sector (Umar, 2020). Theoretically, Safety Climate Theory describes how employees share a common understanding of organisational safety policies, procedures, and priorities, and how these affect workplace safety culture and behavioural norms (Kines et al., 2011; Sawhney et al., 2011). It has been empirically demonstrated that positive perceptions of safety climate are associated with enhanced safety performance among construction workers, including migrant labour populations where vulnerability may be particularly high (Zafar et al., 2024).

At the same time, leadership styles, particularly transformational leadership, are significant factors that influence how safety norms are communicated, exemplified, and embedded at construction sites. Transformational Leadership Theory refers to leadership practices that support and encourage employees through vision, intellectual stimulation, and personal consideration to achieve organisational objectives (Bass & Avolio, 1993; Deng et al., 2023). Safety-specific transformational leadership was found in the literature to be especially useful for enhancing safety outcomes through employee empowerment, the development of a shared vision of safety, and increased motivation to comply (Senthamizh & Anandh, 2024). Another recent study also supports the idea that transformational leadership improves safety behaviour through knowledge sharing and psychological safety (Ali et al., 2025). Therefore, this study argues that institutional pressures selectively reinforce leadership-driven safety mechanisms rather than HR-based systems.

Although there are evident theoretical connections between safety climate, leadership, and perceived accident prevention, gaps exist in the literature regarding the operationalisation and research of Safety-Oriented HR and Climate Practices as an integrated construct of safety climate perceptions and HR practices (training, incentives, and performance management) in infrastructure environments. The majority of research continues to consider safety climate and HR practices as independent antecedents without considering their combined effect on safety outcomes (Manadero et al., 2024; Ashamu, 2026). In addition, although the role of leadership in safety performance is well established, there is little evidence regarding contextual moderators that may reinforce or undermine these relations, particularly within the framework of the national development program.

Also, the national institutions and policies have an important influence on organisational safety practices, as they provide regulatory, normative and cultural pressure on firms and industries. Based on the Institutional Theory, the outside forces are represented by the programs and make companies adjust their practices to gain legitimacy, fulfill the requirements, or even align with the overall targets of the society (Kauppi, 2022). One such program is the Vision 2030 in Saudi Arabia where national transformation agendas are characterized with sound occupational safety and health regulations. Saudi Arabia has reported a reduction of 75 and 30 percent in the number of fatalities and workplace injuries, respectively, due to stringent regulatory measures, digital safety, and active safety policies (Abueish, 2025; Arab News, 2024). National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and compliance incentive programs are examples of how institutional forces can restructure the organisational safety priorities (Government of Saudi Arabia, 2021). Despite such achievements, the high-profile incidents still highlight the issue of safety in mega projects and reinforce the argument that the additional efforts are required to look into the factors underlying the organisations in the context of accident prevention (Pattisson, 2025).

Nonetheless, the available empirical studies did not investigate the interplay of these macro-level programs with organisational safety drivers, including combined Safety-Oriented HR and Climate Practices and project leadership, to determine their effects on perceived accident prevention. The aim of the present research, therefore, was to investigate the interaction between Safety-Oriented HR and Climate Practices and Project Leadership as predictors of perceived accident prevention and Vision 2030 Institutional Pressure and Alignment as a moderator. The study made a theoretical contribution by combining Safety Climate Theory, Transformational Leadership Theory, and Institutional Theory to examine how internal factors within an organisation respond to external institutional programs that influence safety. The current study also argues that institutional pressures within the Vision 2030 framework do not uniformly strengthen all internal safety procedures; rather, they selectively bolster leadership-oriented safety procedures, whereas HR-based safety systems have no direct influence on perceived accident prevention in megaproject settings.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Key Constructs

The term safety climate was coined by (Dov Zohar, 1980) as workers’ joint perceptions about safety priorities, policies, procedures, and practices in the workplace. In construction environments, safety climate is often an indicator of management’s commitment to safety, communication of safety policies, worker engagement, safety training, and enforcement of safety practices (Lestari et al., 2020). Some common HR practices in the construction industry include safety training, competency development, performance assessment, hiring qualified employees, and other safety-based incentives that strengthen safe work behaviours. Empirical studies indicate that HR safety practices can be well-designed to minimise accidents and enhance safety performance by improving employees’ knowledge and adherence to safety practices (CIPM, 2020). To elaborate, in construction organisations, organisational practices that strengthen safety priorities and employee behaviour operationalise safety climate. Some of these practices are safety training programs, precise safety policies, communication systems, safety monitoring systems, and employee involvement in safety decision-making. The practices indicate management’s commitment to safety and influence employees to share the same expectations for safe work. Management’s commitment is always an influence on its safety practices; therefore, there is a higher tendency for workers to adhere to safety procedures, report hazards, and engage in proactive safety behaviour.

Based on this, safety climate and HR practices are operationalised in this research as a single construct, Safety-Oriented HR and Climate Practices. This integration is based on the perception that safety systems, which are HR-driven (training, communication, and performance management), are the structural tools that create shared safety perceptions (safety climate Rather than defining safety climate and HR practices as two distinct constructs, such a practice is indicative of their interdependence, with formal organisational practices constituting the overall perception of employees regarding safety priorities. It can be used particularly in construction environments where formal systems and perceived safety expectations are both strongly intertwined to shape behaviour. Teams, coordinating with stakeholders, and accomplishing project goals in complex project settings (Whyte et al., 2022). In constrTeams, coordinating with stakeholders and accomplishing project goals in complex project settings (Whyte et al., 2022). Ensuring workers carry out their activities safely and effectively. Project leadership in the present study refers to leaders’ capacity to convey safety priorities, direct safety compliance, and influence workers’ behaviour regarding accident prevention. On the other hand, perceived accident prevention is employees’ evaluation of the effectiveness of organisational strategies, policies, and behavioural practices in minimising workplace hazards, injuries, and incidents before they occur. Perceived accident prevention in this study is a measure of the efficacy of safety activities and management in reducing on-site accidents in infrastructure developments.

Finally, Saudi Vision 2030 (2024) eases mega infrastructure projects, such as NEOM, The Red Sea Project, Qiddiya Entertainment City, King Salman Park, and Diriyah Gate, which, combined, should modernise infrastructure and achieve sustainable economic growth. As more infrastructure is developed as part of the Vision 2030, organisations conducting such activities need to balance their operational practice with national safety standards as well as institutional expectations and guidelines (Government of Saudi Arabia, 2021). In the present research, the Vision 2030 Institutional Pressure and Alignment is modelled as a macro-level institutional environment that defines organisational safety priorities and moderates the relationship between internal safety practices and leadership and perceived accident-prevention outcomes.

Theoretical Framework

The theory of Safety Climate, first postulated by Dov Zohar, defines safety climate as the collective perceptions of the employees for organisational safety policies, procedures, and practices that indicate the management priorities towards safety performance (Anna, 2025). The recent empirical research in the construction setting found that a high perception of safety climate positively correlates with adherence to safety protocols and proactive safety behaviours of workers, which result in the enhancement of safety performance (Al-Bayati, 2021; Chen et al., 2021a; Shahin et al., 2026). Others have mentioned the psychological safety climate and this is where individual cognitive understanding of safety in the workplace occurs, as opposed to the organisational climate between groups or organisational levels (Golzad et al., 2023). However, the psychological safety climate emphasises individual interpretations and does not have a collective orientation on the organisation to explore the integrated safety management practices within complex infrastructure project environments. Therefore, the Safety Climate Theory provides a suitable insight into the cumulative effects of Safety-Oriented HR and Climate Practices on employee perceptions of safety, compliance behaviour and accident prevention within construction projects.

Transformational Leadership (TFL) Theory asserts that leaders should motivate followers by inspiring them with vision, intellectual stimulation, and individual consideration to go beyond standard expectations and embrace organisational goals (Bass and Avolio, 1993; Deng et al., 2023). Empirical studies in construction settings support the claim that TFL enhances safety performance by strengthening workers’ safety commitment, promoting knowledge sharing, and increasing proactive safety behaviour (Ali et al., 2025; Senthamizh & Anandh, 2024). TFL is especially appropriate in project-based settings where the leader must manage multiple teams and enforce organisational goals in unstructured, ever-changing environments, compared to other leadership styles such as servant leadership. TFL Theory, therefore, serves as the conceptual base for Project Leadership by explaining how project leaders can reinforce safety priorities and motivate workers to adhere to safe practices that help prevent accidents.

At the macro level, the Institutional Theory explains the mechanisms of external regulation, normative pressures and cultural pressures that influence firms in their participation in practices that comply with societal expectations (Kauppi, 2022). Empirical research in the fields of infrastructure and construction has shown that the impact of government control and state development processes on organisational safety management systems and a more solid adherence to safety are significant (Olimat et al., 2025; Saad et al., 2026). Institutional Theory, therefore, provides a theoretical view of Vision 2030 as an institutional pressure that moderates the translation of internal processes (Safety-Oriented HR, Climate Practices and Project Leadership) into accident-prevention results.

The three theories are combined in this study as opposed to being independent explanatory lenses to explain accident prevention as a multi-level process. Safety Climate Theory describes the process in which Safety-Oriented HR and Climate Practices create formal expectations of safety via organisational systems (training, communication, and performance management). This is supplemented by the Transformational Leadership Theory which describes how project Leadership converts these formal safety expectations into operational behaviours through supervision, enforcement and real time decision-making on-site. Institutional Theory goes further to expand this mechanism by arguing that these relationships are influenced by the external institutional environment. Particularly, the institutional setting of Vision 2030, as understood through the perceived regulatory pressure and organisational commitment to the national safety priorities, empowers or limits the degree to which the leadership can successfully transform organisational safety systems into the results of accident prevention. Therefore, the prevention of accidents in large-scale infrastructure is not due to individual factors, but the interplay of formal safety systems, leadership implementation, and institutional support.

Hypotheses Generation

(Mosly & Makki, 2020) conducted a systematic survey among 401 construction workers working on the large projects in Saudi Arabia and studied 13 dimensions of the safety climate, such as education and training, communication, management commitment, involvement, and competence. The study established that safety commitment by the top management, training, and communication are particular practices that determine safety climate and most likely reinforce behaviour and results. Although it gave good evidence that the HR-related practices, such as training and communication, are fundamental determinants of the safety climate in the construction environment, it did not connect them to the result of perceived accident prevention directly, which is a gap that links practices to behavioural safety results.

Furthermore, mixed-method research was carried out among Micro, Small, and Medium Construction firms (440 surveyed respondents, with 11 interviews added) in Saudi Arabia (Alharbi et al., 2025). It was discovered that the communication gap, the shortage of skilled workforce, the absence of committed safety personnel, and poor knowledge of safety were major limitations to safety compliance. These limitations are of an HR nature and explain why, in the absence of systematic HR practices, safety behaviour is likely to decline. The major limitation of this study, however, is that its sample is biased to the smaller-scale of firm, which cannot be generalised to the large-scale project conditions of Vision 2030 Institutional Pressure and Alignments. Also, the causal direction between HR shortages and accident prevention was not empirically determined.

Supplementing these results with evidence from a different geographical and organisational setting, a smaller quantitative study by (Mustapha et al., 2024) of 77 construction workers in Ghana demonstrated that safety training and communication have a significant impact on productivity in terms of curtailing the risk of accidents and illness. The key barriers and resource gaps that were identified by the respondents as impediments to implementation are hierarchical barriers and a lack of resources. Moreover, organisational commitment was found to be necessary to support training and communication. Although not on a large scale, this study supports that practical training and communication, which are key HR safety practices are associated with better safety behaviours and outcomes, although it also highlights the need to have organisational support in order to realize their full preventive potential.

Although the safety climate is associated with safety behaviours and perceptions, (Chen et al., 2021b) have indicated that its operationalization is not yet consistent in construction because of disjointed and dynamic project settings, and its direct impact on safety outcomes is challenging to determine. This indicates that safety climate processes might not always be transformed into quantifiable accident prevention within a complicated project environment. In addition, (Shen et al., 2017) analysed the influence of safety climate and leadership on the safety behaviour of the construction workers through structural equation modelling. Their findings showed that the relationship between safety climate and safety compliance as well as safety participation is significant, yet the association between safety climate and accident reduction is not as consistent.

The literature as a whole is rather fragmented. Although HR-based safety practices are always associated with better safety perceptions and behave or, their direct connection with accident prevention is not conclusive, especially in dynamic and complex project settings. It means that the performance of these practices can be dependent on the contextual and operational variables instead of serving as independent predictors of accidents prevention.

Accordingly, this study proposes:

H1: Safety-Oriented HR and Climate Practices positively affect perceived accident prevention.

Empirical research is placing more emphasis on project leadership in influencing safety behaviour and reinforcing the act of accident prevention in construction settings. (Zeng et al., 2026) investigated how transformational leadership affects new-generation construction workers through survey data from construction enterprises in Guangdong, China, and structural equation modelling (SEM). The researchers concluded that transformational leadership paid off in enhancing safety compliance and safety participation among workers. The strongest effect was demonstrated by inspirational motivation on safety compliance and participation, meaning that leaders who articulate a safety vision can internalize the safety norm and promote proactive involvement with safety practices. The behaviours are linked to better safety outcomes such as prevention of accidents. Nevertheless, the research primarily discussed behavioural outcomes and did not investigate the interaction of leadership and expanded organisational safety systems in complicated construction projects.

Additional support is provided by another quantitative study of 706 construction workers from Turkey on safety-specific transformational leadership (SSTL) (Ali et al., 2025). The study conducted a cross-sectional survey and concluded that SSTL can largely enhance the safety behaviour of workers and also positively influence the sharing of knowledge about the safety practices. The leadership-safety relationship was also enforced by knowledge sharing, which implied that leaders fostering open communications allow workers to share safety information and become more aware of risks. The implication of these findings is that leadership creates a cooperative atmosphere related to better safety measures and accident prevention. The research was, however, based on perceptual survey data in one national setting, which might not be generalizable to other institutional settings like in big infrastructure programs.

To supplement these results, (Hamdan et al., 2023) surveyed 385 supervisors, engineers, and project managers working in large contracting firms in Malaysia to investigate the importance of safety leadership and competency in developing safety culture. Based on the SmartPLS analysis, the study discovered that safety leadership can substantially reinforce the aspects of safety culture like communication, training, and adherence to safety procedures. Effective safety culture enhances safer working conditions and aids in preventing accidents on the construction sites. But the study was mainly limited to contractor-level culture and not the project-level leadership dynamics that are common in large infrastructure programs.

The literature, collectively, places leadership as one of the driving forces of safety in operation; its impacts are not equally strong in all contexts. It seems that the effectiveness of leadership can be influenced by the surrounding organisational and environmental conditions and not as an independent one. This underlines the necessity to take into consideration leadership as a more general contextual and institutional unit. Thus, H2 is proposed:

H2: Project leadership positively affects perceived accident prevention.

Construction safety literature evidence reveals that the impact of external institutional forces, including government regulations, industry standards, and policy frameworks, tends to affect the translation of internal safety practices and leadership into safety outcomes. A study of institutional pressures and safety climate on construction projects analysed survey data of 186 construction companies in China and performed PLS analysis to assess the effects of coercive, normative, and mimetic pressures (He et al., 2016). The results showed that external forces of rules and industry standards played a key role in improving the commitment of management to safety and the engagement of employees in safety activities. Such institutional pressures enhanced the workers’ perceptions of safety responsibility and organisational safety priorities, proving the fact that external regulatory environments could impact the functioning of internal safety climate mechanisms in construction projects. Nevertheless, the research is ten years old, employed a small sample, and targeted non-Saudi companies, which restricts its applicability.

Similarly, a regulatory reforms and safety culture study in the construction industry concluded that institutional components such as government regulations, training needs and the application of policies are very essential in improving organisational safety culture (Saad et al., 2026). The research, which analysed survey data of 105 construction professionals, revealed that regulatory bodies and institutional sponsors had a significant impact on the development of safety culture in comparison with contractors or actors at the project level. This implies that macro-level institutional structures can positively affect the impact of organisational safety practice in terms of shaping expectations, setting standards, and shaping firms to embrace stronger safety systems. However, the study has limitations due to the small sample size that restricts its generalization. The second research article by (Liu et al., 2024) that focuses on the concept of safety governance in construction megaprojects emphasized the role of both institutional and governance mechanisms in managing complex safety risks. The research developed a system-dynamics model of safety management within megaprojects and realised that governance institutions, regulatory controls and technological assistance can improve the ability of an organisation in preventing and reacting to safety failures. Such governance systems establish the general setting where the project-level safety practices are located hence the degree to which the organisational safety practices are functional in averting accidents.

Regarding leadership, (Elosta & Alzubi, 2024) examined the impacts of the perceived employer safety obligations on the connection between safety leadership and safety behaviour in 359 construction professionals. Their results concluded that strong employer safety obligations increased the positive effect of safety leadership on safety behaviour, i.e., the greater the perceived emphasis of the organisation on safety obligations, the greater the effect of the leadership on the enhancement of safety practices. It indicates that external or situational demands regarding safety (like organisational policies or norms) may support effective leadership in leading to safer behaviours. Nevertheless, the prevention of accidents was not directly examined in this research, and the sample was only Turkey professional, which also restricts the ability to generalize this study to the Saudi setting. Second research by (Hussain et al., 2026) investigated regulatory competencies to introduce Design for Safety (DfS) in construction, surveying 91 stakeholders, including regulators and designers. It was discovered that implementation of safety requirements relied heavily on leadership and commitment, capacity building, technology integration, compliance, collaboration, and resource allocation. This demonstrates that leadership in regulatory and enforcement agencies has a great influence on the implementation of safety practices, which impact safety outcomes. One weakness is that the research did not directly examine project-level leadership or accident prevention, and its context in Malaysia could vary from other institutional settings. Nevertheless, it also helps to believe that the effects of leadership on safety may be mitigated through Vision 2030 Institutional Pressure and Alignment.

Nevertheless, a few pioneer studies offer valuable information about the way safety outcomes are generated by means of various organisational processes. (Clarke, 2013) summarizes data in high-risk industries and discovers that safety leadership, especially transformational and supervisory leadership, is significantly more directly and strongly related to safety compliance and accident reduction than safety climate itself. The analysis indicates that although the safety climate reflects mutual view of safety policies, its impact on actual safety outcomes is highly reinforced through behavioural compliance, but the leadership directly influences the workers in their daily safety decisions and compliance behaviours at the workplace. In the same vein, (Zohar & Luria, 2010) construct a multilevel framework of safety climate and show that organisational safety mechanisms, such as safety policies rooted in the HR, do not necessarily translate into the safe behaviour unless they are put into practice through group-level supervisory leadership. Their results emphasize leadership as the important implementation layer that transforms formal safety procedures into manifest safety practices where supervisory behaviour determines the extent to which safety policies are actually implemented in real working conditions. Collectively, these studies indicate that leadership has a more direct operation role in the safety performance as compared to HR-based systems, which offers a better background to comprehend why contextual/institutional forces are more inclined to enhance leadership-directed safety pathways. Overall, although institutional frameworks should have an impact on organisational safety practices, these impacts might not be homogenous among various mechanisms. In more complicated project settings institutional pressures can be more directly converted into leadership behaviours than formal HR-based mechanisms. Thus, H3 and H4 are proposed

H3: Vision 2030 Institutional Pressure and Alignments moderate the relationship between Safety-Oriented HR and Climate Practices and perceived accident prevention.

H4: Vision 2030 Institutional Pressure and Alignments moderate the relationship between Project leadership and perceived accident prevention.

Conceptual Framework

(Fig. 1) shows the conceptual framework of this study with respective hypotheses. Safety-Oriented HR and Climate Practices and Project Leadership are independent Variables (IVs), impacting the dependent variable (DV), which is perceived accident prevention. Both pathways are shown to be moderated by a moderating variable (MV), Vision 2030 Institutional Pressure and Alignment (Fig. 1).