Using Safety Accountability to Enhance Construction Safety Performance: The Mediating Roles of Safety Monitoring and Safety Learning Under Inclusive Leadership

Safety performance remains a persistent challenge in the construction industry due to hazardous working conditions, dynamic site environments, and complex organizational structures. Despite regulatory advances and technical safety controls, accident rates remain high, suggesting that formal mechanisms alone are insufficient. Addressing this gap, this study examines safety accountability as a central organizational mechanism and investigates how it influences construction workers’ safety performance through behavioral processes and leadership conditions. Drawing on accountability theory and social learning theory, we propose a moderated parallel mediation model in which safety monitoring and safety learning function as mediators, while inclusive leadership behavior serves as a contextual moderator. Data were collected from 629 construction workers employed in large-scale projects in Istanbul and Ankara, Türkiye, using a two-wave survey design to mitigate common method bias. Hypotheses were tested using confirmatory factor analysis and Hayes’ PROCESS macro. The results indicate that safety accountability does not exert a significant direct effect on safety performance; rather, its influence is fully transmitted through safety monitoring and safety learning, with monitoring emerging as the stronger mediating mechanism. Moreover, inclusive leadership behavior significantly strengthens the accountability-driven pathways leading to improved safety outcomes. By integrating accountability structures, behavioral processes, and leadership context, this study advances construction safety research and provides evidence-based guidance for enhancing occupational safety performance in high-risk construction environments.