【正文】 p management. The application of the program was successful in drawing managements attention to safety issues. One study indicates that 83% of projects achieve the zero accident goals after applying the _Zero Accident Program_ (Center to Protect Workers_ Rights, 1993。 ? to explore the riskprone activities on construction sites。 for sites with an area exceeding 10,000 m2 there must be 2–3 safety inspectors。 ? factors affecting safety management。 for example, workers are crowded together on sites, operating at height and outdoors, with the use of heavy machine and equipment. The questionnaire explores the perceived probability of serious accidents on construction sites, which will lead to fatalities. The respondents were asked to choose the most probable serious site accidents (can be more than one from a list of accidents prepared by the authors) that may lead to fatalities and the results are shown in Fig. 5. Fig. 5 indicates that falling from height_ is considered most risky (92%) (Larsson and Field,2020). The other accidents in descending order of perceived probability are hit by falling materials, collapse of earthwork, use of heavy machine, and electrocution. The results are parable (with the exception of the ranking of electrocution) with the safety statistical data of the construction industry in China (as listed in Table 2). The results indicate that the frequencies of accidents correlate positively with fatalities and severe injuries with the exception of electrocution. Table 2 shows that falling from height scores high both in the accident and fatality records. The proportion of the accident reaches 50% of the total accidents, which is obviously higher than any other accidents. With respect to fatality, 524 construction workers (48%) lost their life due to falling from height in 1999 (see Table 3). . Impacts of site accidents . Perceived probability of serious accidents on construction sites Table 2 Safety accidents in the construction industry (in 1999) Sources: China Construction Statistical Yearbook (2020, p. 105). a The figure in parentheses indicates the percentage of the total. . Relative importance of factors The respondents ranked _poor safety awareness of firms top leaders and poor safety awareness of project managers first and third, with a RII of and . It indicates that leaders play a very important role in construction safety management. The top management sets up appropriate environments for safety by defining the safety policy and allocating resources. The attitude of the top leaders plays an important role in cultivating a good safety culture (Seppala, 1995). However, in practice, not all business leaders pay great attention to safety management because other business objectives such as profitability, schedule and quality are always peting for their time and resources (Hakkinen, 1995). This can be seen from the questionnaire response that only a small proportion of top management attended safety meetings. As contractors have to finish the work within a specified period of time, at an agreed price and at a certain standard of workmanship, most people focus on the immediate problems and view their top priorities as meeting the production schedule, quota and cost targets, and quality requirements. Only after achieving these objectives will they give some considerations to safety (Tam et al., 2020). Table 4 RII of factors affecting construction site safet 6. Demands for governmental support The government should play an important role in safety management in the construction industry (Kartam et al., 2020). In this survey, respondents were asked to provide their opinions on an openended format on the ways that the government can support safety management. Fig. 8 shows the results. Fig. 6 shows that 62% of the respondents indicated _financial aid_ as the major tool. However, according to an interviewee, an official in the Ministry of Construction in charge of construction safety, the provision of financial aid is not feasible under the current government policy. 31% of the respondents felt that government should carry out more effective inspection. Currently the inspections are not conducted effectively as it is impossible to have sufficient inspectors to visit all workplaces at all time and be there when new hazards arisen (MacCollum, 1995). Under current circumstances, the most feasible ways that the government can manage is the provision of support in safety training and a proper legal framework with stringent enforcement. Fig. 6. Demands for governmental support 7. Conclusions Construction is one of the most hazardous industries due to its unique nature. By international standards, the construction site safety record of China is poor. Every year there are about 1000 recorded fatalities in construction sites and a large number of reported occupational accidents。 and ? Only a small number of contractors offer systematic safety training. As shown in Fig. 4, most (68%) of the respondents considered _impairing reputation of firms_ as the most serious impact of site accidents whilst few of them (5%) considered _imposing psychological burden on workers_ as serious, which confirms the negative attitude of organizational management towards construction safety as described above. It definitely pleads for the government_s intervention by tightening up legal enforcement and punishment for any violation of safety practices. Table 5 Classification of serious accidents in construction in China Although there are many factors affecting contractors_ safety performance, the main factors perceived by the respondents are: ? poor safety awareness of firm_s top leaders。 and ? reckless operations. Based on the analysis, it can be concluded that the industry should be more active in organizing training programs for educating pe