The empirical data were supported by the collection of project
managers’ opinions of project safety and quality performance.
The empirical data were the focus of this study, and the opinionbased
data were only collected to support the empirical results.
However, the opinion-based data provide an important link to the
existing studies of safety and quality. The theoretical backing for
this study comes from existing research that indicates there may be
a relationship between safety and quality. Although these studies
provide robust evidence that a relationship could exist, opinionbased
data are always subject to biases and human error. An empirical
study has the potential to confirm these existing findings,
although it is important to know if the opinion-based data also align
with previous research. If the opinion-based data were at odds with
the empirical data, this would have important implications for
interpreting the findings of previous studies. Thus, the opinions of
project managers on these projects were important to validate and
support the empirical findings. Specifically, project managers were
asked the following two questions: (1) Compared with the average
project, what is your perception of safety on the project (risk, near
misses, injuries)? and (2) Compared with the average project, what
is your perception of quality on this project (amount of rework)?
For safety perceptions, the following scale was used:
• Far worse than average (>20% more injuries/risk);
• Worse than average (10–19% more injuries/risk);
• Slightly below average (1–9% more injuries/risk);
• Average;
• Slightly above average (1–9% fewer injuries/risk);
• Better than average (10–19% fewer injuries/risk); and
• Far better than average (>20% fewer injuries/risk).
A similar scale was implemented for quality perception responses.
The only difference was that the scale referred to rework
instead of injuries/risk (e.g., Far worse than average >20% more
rework).