A Study on the Influence of Construction Workers' Physiological Status and Jobsite Environment on Behavior and Performance

Understanding processes affecting workforce behavior and performance in terms of productivity, safety, and quality is of central importance to the social and economic sustainability of the construction industry. Existing theories stress the role of worker behavior in determining performance (e.g., accident causation theories), and identify several factors influencing behavior and performance. However, most of these theories are limited in scope and often tend to be confined within one discipline neglecting factors beyond the discipline’s domain. Also, models often comprise relationships based on anecdotal evidence or heuristic approaches that are not fully clarified. Moreover, previous research studies on workers never analyzed the role played by worker’s physiological status and jobsite physical, ergonomic and environmental stressors on behavior and performance. By building on existing knowledge, the long-term objective of the authors is to generate an effective and comprehensive behavior-performance model. The first step taken by the authors to accomplish this long-term objective focuses on generating an experimental program to model the relationship between worker productivity, safety, and quality behavior and performance, and the influence of worker’s physiological status and jobsite physical environmental stressors on behavior and performance. The aim of this paper is to describe the experimental program research plan.