Report: Ethical Dilemma and Solutions in Construction Management

This report examines an ethical dilemma prevalent in the construction industry, specifically concerning worker safety and the ethical responsibilities of subcontractors. The report highlights the potential for profit-driven decisions to compromise safety measures, leading to hazardous working conditions and potential accidents. It analyzes the issue, emphasizing the importance of prioritizing worker well-being and adhering to ethical codes of conduct. The analysis evaluates the extent of safety measures, the negligence of subcontractors in assigning a budget for worker safety, and the potential consequences of such negligence. The report also discusses relevant Australian legislation and the need for companies to treat safety issues as ethical obligations. Finally, it offers recommendations for mitigating the dilemma, including treating safety as a core ethical aspect, allocating sufficient budget for safety measures, and providing adequate training to workers. The report emphasizes that management should take responsibility to share safety instructions among the workers.

Running head: CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT
Construction Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Authors note

1
CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT
Executive Summary
This report highlights the ethical dilemma that could be experienced in the construction
business. The scope of the site is hazardous, and the worker has to work in these adverse
situations. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the management to ensure safety ethics in the
workplace. The report analyses and discusses an ethical dilemma that could happen in
workplaces and recommends a solution to it at the end.

2
CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT
Table of Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................3
Dilemma Description.....................................................................................................3
Analysis and Evaluation.................................................................................................4
Conclusions and recommendations................................................................................5
References......................................................................................................................7

3
CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT
Introduction
Ethical issues in the workplace are treated as an important aspect of company
management in any industry. The nature of ethical dilemmas is mostly different in various
commercial places. In the construction industry, the organisations often face issues like short
and late payments, contract breaching, workplace culture, and questionable safety ethics, and
so on. This report is about the ethical dilemma that is commonly experienced in the
constructional sites. Later the report analyses and evaluates the ethical issues that come out of
the dilemma and recommends the solution to it.
Dilemma Description
Securing safety for the workers in the workplace is part of organisational ethics. In the
construction sites, worker safety needs to be addressed at most as they work in dangerous
work conditions. Construction workers often have to work with heavy machinery, heights,
heavy noise and study conditions (Drevland, Lohne & Klakegg 2017). There is all kind of
measures that should be taken to prevent any kind of accidents in the workplace. It is the
responsibility of the contractors to ensure that the workers are working with enough safety
instruments and the machinery they are using is safe and sound. But it is seen that the
subcontractors in the construction business avoid their ethical responsibility for worker
safety. They do not invest money in providing safety instruments to the workers. Even the
machinery that is used in the construction site is outdated and could cause extreme sound
sources (Tsai 2017). As the business goes in the lower parts of the hierarchy, the management
in these levels is more concern about profit-making while ignoring their ethical aspects.
Economic facets are the base of any business industry, but maintaining the ethical
workplace culture is as important as any other thing. When the workers spend most of the
work time in the critical and hazardous situations in a construction site, the small

4
CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT
subcontractors aim to gain the utmost profit with minimal expenses. They do not see the need
for changing a machine if it is working even at its minimal capacity (Reid et al.2018). The
expenses on the safety measures seem irrelevant to them and workers are forced to work in a
risky environment.
Analysis and Evaluation
The first thing that should be analysed in this ethical dilemma is the extent of safety
measures a company should take for their workers. This extends depended on what kind of
work is done in the construction site. If that is a renovation work, the safety expenses would
be less. But if it is new construction, the expenses are huge. The problems lie in the fact that
most of the time, subcontractors in the construction industry do not assign a budget for
worker safety. They are focused on money-making and avoid safety ethics issues (Oladinrin
& Ho, 2016). The outcome of this negligence in safety morals could be massive in nature.
In the construction sites, the workers are compelled to work in an environment that is
hostile and noisy. The risk factors in these sites are more than any other industry. The
workers could get injured while working in heights or using heavy machinery. If the
machinery is not well-maintained, that could lead to major accidents. Also, the risk of fall is
there in the construction sites. The electric wires that are used for the machines sometimes are
not use-worthy. These could be damaged and if not maintained properly, could cause the
hazard of electric shocks.
Australian legislation has its policies for maintaining workplace safety ethics. In the
construction business, the management has the responsibility to check and maintain these
safety measures (Oladinrin & Ho 2015). Subcontractors in this industry are aware of the
safety ethics, but they consciously avoid to follow them. It is the ethical responsibility of the
contractors to provide instruments that are well maintained and well-working conditions. The

5
CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT
workplace safety instruments for the workers like, the helmets, safety guards and other things
need to be provided to the workers to avoid severe damages. But, the problem is that the sub-
contractors do not invest in these parts of safety to reduce their production cost. They have to
understand that if workplace safety is not maintained, accidents might occur, which might
result in further expenses of the subcontractors. This might cause them economic and
workforce deficiencies (Jeanes 2017). In order to get the tenders, they cut the budget of safety
measures and violates safety ethics and code of conduct. Experts have argued that companies
need to stop seeing safety issues as compliance issues and treat them as ethical issues to avoid
unnecessary illness and accidents. The Work Health and Safety Act, 2011 or WHS have all
the provisions for the Australian companies to follow for workplace safety ethics.
Conclusions and recommendations
Workplace safety ethics are one of the non-negotiable aspects of business
management. Especially in the construction business, where the workplace is full of risks and
hazards. The hazards of the construction site are various as the worker is constantly exposed
to risky work environments. The negligence in safety measures could result in severe losses,
including life loss. Subcontractors and other authoritative personals should take the issue as a
part of their ethical unbiasedness and provide instruments of workplace safety to the workers.
This would be helpful in building a safe and positive work environment as well. To achieve
the goals of safety ethics a company could-
 Treat the safety aspects as a necessary part of workplace ethics. The importance of
having a defined ethical safety measure for the workers need to be realised.
 There should be a part of the budget dedicated to the safety measures and
maintenance in the workplace.

6
CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT
 The authority needs to understand that safety ethics are important to avoid further
expenses and risks for the company.
 Management should take responsibility to share the safety instructions among the
workers.
 They could arrange some training for the workers to pass the safety information and
let them know how serious they are about the safety provisions.

7
CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT
References
Ireland, F., Lohne, J. & Klakegg, O.J., 2017. Ethical Dilemmas in Value Delivery:
Theoretical Conditions. In 25th Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean
Construction (pp. 145-152).
Jeanes, E., 2017. Are we ethical? Approaches to ethics in management and organisation
research. The organisation, 24(2), pp.174-197.
Oladinrin, O.T. & Ho, CM, 2015. Critical enablers for codes of ethics implementation in
construction organisations. Journal of Management in Engineering, 32(1), p.04015023.
Oladinrin, O.T. & Ho, CMF, 2016. Enabling ethical code embeddedness in construction
organisations: A review of the process assessment approach. Science and engineering ethics,
22(4), pp.1193-1215.
Reid, A.M., Brown, J.M., Smith, J.M., Cope, A.C. and Jamieson, S., 2018. Ethical dilemmas
and reflexivity in qualitative research. Perspectives on medical education, 7(2), pp.69-75.
Tsai, T.C., 2017. Twelve tips for the construction of ethical dilemma case-based assessment.
Medical teacher, 39(4), pp.341-346.