The nature of safety culture: a review of theory and research

This paper reviews the literature on safety culture and safety climate. The main emphasis is on applied research customary in the social psychological or organisational psychological traditions. Although safety culture and climate are generally acknowledged to be important concepts, not much consensus has been reached on the cause, the content and the consequences of safety culture and climate in the past 20 years. Moreover, there is an overall lack of models specifying either the relationship of both concepts with safety and risk management or with safety performance. In this paper, safety culture and climate will be differentiated according to a general framework based on work by Schein (1992 Schein) on organisational culture. This framework distinguishes three levels at which organisational culture can be studied — basis assumptions, espoused values and artefacts. At the level of espoused values we find attitudes, which are equated with safety climate. The basic assumptions, however, form the core of the culture. It is argued that these basic assumptions do not have to be specifically about safety, although it is considered a good sign if they are. It is concluded that safety climate might be considered an alternative safety performance indicator and that research should focus on its scientific validity. More important, however, is the assessment of an organisation's basic assumptions, since these are assumed to be explanatory to its attitudes.     

Can focus on safety culture become an excuse for not rethinking design of technology?

Two generic organisational contexts associated with technological designs in relation to safety culture are discussed: (1) operating organisations using existing technologies, and (2) design organisations as producers of technologies. It is argued that the concept of safety culture, if misused, may lead to the adoption of non-effective change strategies in the operational context. On the other hand, it is also argued that design organisations should invest more attention to issues commonly subsumed under the concept of safety culture. In this case, however, the concept of safety culture has to be adapted to fit the demands facing design organisations. Issues of morality and their association with the safety culture concept will be discussed. It is suggested that a stronger focus on understanding innovation and safety together should nourish future research about culture’s influence on design and safety.     

The Relationship Between Workers’ Safety Culture and Accidents,Near Accidents and Health Problems

One of the dimensions treated as part of a company’s safety culture or climate is workers’ attitudes towards risk and safety. In the present study these personal aspects are defined as workers’ safety culture, which is understood as a way of acting focused on life and taking care of one’s health. A questionnaire on safety culture was filled out by 200 employees of a metallurgical enterprise. Factor analysis was used to determine empirical scales of the questionnaire, whereas variance analysis was used to test hypotheses. The results confirmed the hypotheses that people who experienced accidents, dangerous situations, and—to a lesser extent—health problems had a lower level of safety culture. Nevertheless not all of the scales determined during factor analysis turned out to be significant as far as all kinds of those undesirable situations are concerned. Proposals for future studies are formulated in the conclusion.     

Perspectives on safety culture

Overviewing selected elements from the literature, this paper locates the notion of safety culture within its parent concept of organisational culture. A distinction is drawn between functionalist and interpretive perspectives on organisational culture. The terms ‘culture’ and ‘climate’ are clarified as they are typically applied to organisations and to safety. A contrast is drawn between strategic top down and data-driven bottom up approaches to human factors as an illustrative aspect of safety. A safety case study is used to illustrate two measurement approaches. Key issues for future study include valid measurement of safety culture and developing methods to adequately represent mechanisms through which safety culture might influence, and be influenced by, other safety factors.     

企业安全文化建设的哲学思考

从马克思主义哲学的角度，论述了建设企业安全文化是符合职工群众意愿的大事，必须以实践为基础，坚持辩证统一的观点、联系和发展的观点。以联系工厂实践，说明企业安全文化建设的哲学原理     

Parsing organizational culture: How the norm for adaptability influences the relationship between culture consensus and financial performance in high‐technology firms

The relationship between organizational culture and financial performance remains elusive even though researchers have studied it for some time. Early research suggested that a strong culture that aligns members' behavior with organizational objectives boosts financial performance. A more recent view is that, because strong cultures promote adherence to routines and behavioral uniformity, they are less effective in dynamic environments. We suggest that the relationship between culture and performance can be reconciled by recognizing that culture encompasses three components: (1) the content of norms (norm content); (2) how widely members agree about norms (culture consensus); and (3) how intensely organizational members hold particular norms (norm intensity). We hypothesize that “strong cultures”—where a high consensus exists among members across a broad set of culture norms—can contribute to better financial performance even in dynamic environments if norm content intensely emphasizes adaptability. We test this hypothesis in a sample of large firms in the high‐technology industry. Firms characterized by higher culture consensus and intensity about adaptability performed better three years later than did those characterized by lower consensus, lower intensity about adaptability, or both. We discuss how parsing culture into content, consensus, and intensity advances theoretical and empirical understanding of the culture–performance relationship. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

CCall--healthy and successful work in call centres.

Call centre workplaces are in many ways a challenge to occupational health and safety. The occupation itself can be described as an IT information technology-supported, communication-intensive form of work with often unusual working hours and a high rate of part-time employment. Data on the employee turnover as well as absenteeism related to occupational disability is quite contradictory. Occupational safety and its proponents still have to find new ways into the corporate structures and cultures of this relatively new and rapidly growing branch of industry. In a 2-year research and development project, using a holistic approach and under consideration of all the relevant disciplines, call centre workplaces were studied, and organisational measures were developed and field tested by putting them into practice. Practical help was developed for a sustainable strategy for successful and healthy work in call centres.     

Are men better negotiators everywhere? A meta‐analysis of how gender differences in negotiation performance vary across cultures

Prior research has found that each culture and gender influences negotiation strategies and outcomes, but less is known about their interplay. We integrate these two research streams by providing a meta‐analytic review of the interactive impact of gender and culture on negotiation performance. We reviewed 185 studies that reported gender differences in intracultural negotiation performance across 30 societies that varied across seven cultural dimensions. Results showed that Hofstede's individualism–collectivism, GLOBE's in‐group collectivism and assertiveness practices, and Schwartz's harmony moderated the gender effect on negotiation performance. We found that in cultures lower in individualism, higher in in‐group collectivism practices, lower in assertiveness practices, and higher in harmony, women more likely outperformed men in negotiations. Implications for the role of gender and culture in negotiations and organizations more broadly are discussed.     

Exploring the social and organisational aspects of human factors integration: A framework and case study

In this paper we first outline a framework which aims to capture some of the social and organisational aspects of human factors integration (HFI) which have been outlined by previous research. The framework was partly used to design a set of interview questions that were used with a case study of a human factors team working with the UK defence industry. The findings from the case study revealed a number of barriers which accord with previous research in the domain of HFI (e.g., attitudes and perceptions towards HF), as well as providing insights into the improvement strategies used by the HF team in order to improve HFI. These included attempts to build relationships and establish a working rapport with other groups in the company, as well as other activities aimed at addressing the organisational culture within the company as a whole (e.g., attempts to raise the profile of HF within the company). We use the framework for social and organisational aspects of HFI to discuss our findings alongside other research on group behaviour and boundary management within large organisations. The conclusions of the paper point to the utility of the framework as a means of planning HFI improvement strategies which can help to overcome some of the social and organisational barriers to HFI.     

高危行业B类安全文化关键要素研究

为加强安全文化研究成果对企业实践的指导作用,对研究成果的研究样本、思路到方法进行分析,找出在安全文化关键要素研究方面没有得出一致性结论的原因,并按对安全文化内涵理解的不同将其归纳为A,B两大类。采用文本资料分析法,对高危行业的经验文本资料进行定性研究,得到高危行业B类安全文化的7个维度和29个题项要素,最终得出B类安全文化要素关系模型。从实践和理论的角度,支持了安全文化是"有影响安全业绩的、存在于企业行动、管理政策、作业过程中的企业的安全理念、安全态度"的观点。     

基于文献计量与共词分析法的企业安全文化研究述评

为了揭示国内企业安全文化的研究现状,并为后续研究指明方向,采用文献计量分析法、共词分析法对选取的2 474篇文献进行分析并利用NetDraw软件输出关键词知识图谱。结果表明:企业安全文化的文献量与研究内容呈阶段性特征,以2002,2011年为界划分为3个阶段;研究机构众多且主要研究者的研究方向存在差异;研究重点集中在企业安全文化内涵与层次结构、建设与评价实证研究以及与其他变量的关系3个方面;存在研究行业过于集中,安全文化评价方法与现实存在“脱节”等问题。     

民航运输企业实施安全文化战略的分析

结合民航运输企业的实际情况,从利于应用出发,给出民航运输企业安全文化的新定义;在总结山东航空公司成立以来安全管理经验的基础上,对安全管理的理念和方法进行总结和提升,使其上升到文化的高度,提出在民航运输企业实施安全文化战略的新构想;论述民航运输企业安全文化的组成、特点、作用及实施方法,提出民航运输企业的安全文化由4个层次组成,即理念、价值观;组织领导;规章制度;操作执行。对各要素之间存在的关系和作用进行系统的论述,使人们对于安全的认识更加系统化;指出实施安全文化战略对民航运输企业保障运输安全有非常重要的意义,并给出实施安全文化战略的几点建议。     

Traffic culture as symbol exchange - A cross-country comparison of Russia and Norway

The core aim of the study was to gain insight into the cross-country differences in traffic risk perception and driving behaviour and also how culture and cultural differences may influence perceived risk and risk behaviour by comparing a sample of the Russian population with a sample of the Norwegian population. A new measurement instrument aimed at measuring culture as symbol exchange was applied. Self-completion questionnaire surveys were carried out among representative samples of the Norwegian (n = 247) and the Russian (n = 299) population aged 18 years and over. The results showed that culture defined as symbol exchange was weakly associated with risk perception. It is suggested that research carried out to date on the role of culture in risk research may have focused on criterion variables which are not very relevant. However, while traffic safety culture does not seem to be important for risk perception, this study shows that it seems to be relevant for drivers’ risk behaviour and thus it is still relevant and important to focus on traffic culture in risk research despite the fact that culture does not predict perceived risk. As symbol exchange, the newly developed measure of traffic safety culture is capable of predicting drivers’ risk behaviour in traffic and is therefore a valid predictor of traffic safety.     

Ranking of process safety cultures for risk-based inspections using indicative safety culture assessments

Although major hazard industries have no legal obligations to demonstrate a good safety culture, it is an increasingly important factor for risk-based inspections. This paper describes the development and evaluation of a relatively simple method for external indicative assessment of the process safety culture in major hazard industries. As a first step, a tool was developed. Second, the tool was successfully tested in a workshop with major hazard inspectors. After this ‘proof of concept’ and a few adaptations to improve the tool, quantitative evaluation and validation were carried out with a representative sample of major hazard inspectors in the Netherlands. In this stage, the tool comprised 30 questions, of which 19 sufficiently frequent valid responses were given for the validity test. The evaluations demonstrate that without specific preparations, inspection teams can use the tool to discriminate between plants with poor or good safety cultures. That is sufficient for ranking as additional input for risk-based inspection strategies. The resulting indicative ‘scores’ for safety culture correlate meaningfully with the quality of process safety management systems and the number of (legal) non-compliances, which were identified by the inspection team at the same occasion. The use of the tool can be further improved by training inspectors, making minor adaptations of the inspection process, and broadening the scope of a few questions. It is expected that external assessments of safety culture will become increasingly important not only for inspectorates, but also for a range of other external stakeholders.     

广义安全文化的探讨

对广义安全文化的定义、内容进行综述;基于研究现状,将广义安全文化的内容、结构及特征系统化,建立广义安全文化指标体系;提出符合广义安全文化研究特征的"硬系统"和"软系统"研究方法论;运用"马斯诺需求层次理论"对广义安全文化发展进行分级。这对安全文化学的建设具有重要意义,可为安全文化深入研究提供理论依据。     

Proactive career behaviors and subjective career success: The moderating role of national culture

Although career proactivity has positive consequences for an individual's career success, studies mostly examine objective measures of success within single countries. This raises important questions about whether proactivity is equally beneficial for different aspects of subjective career success, and the extent to which these benefits extend across cultures. Drawing on Social Information Processing theory, we examined the relationship between proactive career behaviors and two aspects of subjective career success—financial success and work‐life balance—and the moderating role of national culture. We tested our hypotheses using multilevel analyses on a large‐scale sample of 11,892 employees from 22 countries covering nine of GLOBE's 10 cultural clusters. Although we found that proactive career behaviors were positively related to subjective financial success, this relationship was not significant for work‐life balance. Furthermore, career proactivity was relatively more important for subjective financial success in cultures with high in‐group collectivism, high power distance, and low uncertainty avoidance. For work‐life balance, career proactivity was relatively more important in cultures characterized by high in‐group collectivism and humane orientation. Our findings underline the need to treat subjective career success as a multidimensional construct and highlight the complex role of national culture in shaping the outcomes of career proactivity.     

航空安全文化的研究进展

结合国内外对航空安全文化定量和定性的研究结果,定义了航空安全文化,并阐述航空安全文化的内涵,介绍国内外航空安全文化研究的进展情况,指出了国内外航空安全文化研究的差距,进而给出我国航空安全文化的研究方向。目的在于使以后的研究越来越关注实证角度,为从人为因素角度加强航空安全提供可靠、可信的数据支持,提高飞行绩效,创造安全飞行周期新记录,最终提高航空公司的经济及社会效益。     

The “social-physiology” of safety. An integrative approach to understanding organisational psychological mechanisms behind safety performance

This paper aims at contributing to a comprehensive perspective on occupational safety by integrating research on different specific organisational psychological concepts found to contribute to different types of organisational performance, and apply these to an occupational safety context. A second aim was to present perspectives on how occupational safety may be promoted within an organization. The following mechanisms are suggested. A leadership style promoting co-operation, inspiring, fostering group goals, as well as providing individualized support and empowering workers may intrinsically be expected to comprise rich and open communication and thus support the development of high-quality interactions between managers and employees. Such interaction and communication may promote the development of mutual trust, and the development of a good workgroup climate. Trust, in turn, may further promote communication and interaction. Mutual trust, high-quality relations, and a strong group climate may promote workers’ motivation and intentions to contribute to the organisational goals. Managers successful in demonstrating true and consistent priority of workers’ safety may promote the development of workers’ trust but also convince that safety is a prime organisational goal. This may promote workers’ motivation to behave safely. Trustful relations characterized by empowerment and participation are then likely also to support the realization of safety intentions into safe behavior.