Meaningful and effective consultation and the construction industry of Victoria, Australia
- Authors: Ayers, Gerard , Culvenor, John , Sillitoe, Jim , Else, Dennis
- Date: 2013
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Construction Management and Economics Vol. 31, no. 6 (2013), p. 542-567
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: Consultation between employers and employees is mandated under Australian occupational health and safety legislation. For consultation to be considered meaningful and effective, it is generally accepted that moral and ethical principles such as trust, honesty, commitment and respect need to be recognized and applied by individuals during consultation. It is also considered that an organization's level of cultural maturity is an important element in the ability of individuals to freely engage in meaningful and effective consultation. If the value of consultation is best reflected in the degree of input and control that workers have regarding the very decisions that affect them, and if the level of worker involvement is a reflection of an organization's level of cultural maturity, it is debateable whether the notion of applying moral and ethical principles during consultation, and the adoption of the paradigm of organizational and cultural maturity, have been successfully developed and embraced in the commercial and industrial sector of the construction industry of Victoria, Australia. © 2013 Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.
- Description: C1
Effect of creative thinking on OHS committees
- Authors: Culvenor, John , Ayers, Gerard
- Date: 2002
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Occupational Health and Safety, Australia and New Zealand Vol. 18, no. 3 (2002), p. 239-246
- Full Text: false
- Reviewed:
- Description: An important principle of Australian OHS law is that workers participate in the management of health and safety via OHS committees and representatives. A further principle is that workplaces engage in problem solving processes according to a hierarchy of hazard control - rather than simply following prescriptive rules. The OHS committee is therefore a problem-solving forum. However, the benefits of problem- solving or creative thinking techniques within committees have not been widely explored. To test the effects, two OHS committees from two construction companies were trained in a combination of creative thinking and risk control concepts. Subjects were tested on their ability to generate solutions and to rank solutions. They were compared with untrained subjects from two further committees. The results showed that the trained subjects generated more solutions and, when ranking solutions, showed a greater preference for solutions which were higher on the hierarchy of controls. (author abstract)
- Description: 2003003032