Using Grounded Theory Methodology to Explore the Information of Precursors Based on Subway Construction Incidents

Precursor management has been studied and applied across a wide range of industries. The findings demonstrate that knowledge of precursors can provide an opportunity to avoid incidents and further safety performance. A review of the literature and present construction practice implies that there is a lack of comprehensive knowledge about what precursors mean within the context of construction safety. This study aims to fill this gap by using grounded theory to capture the nature of precursors in the construction industry. Seventy-nine collapse incidents from a subway construction incident database (SCID) were employed as the source of data. The grounded theory analysis (including the three steps of open coding, axial coding, and selective coding) was conducted one by one, using qualitative…