Leading indicators of system safety – Monitoring and driving the organizational safety potential

An indicator can be considered any measure – quantitative or qualitative – that seeks to produce information on an issue of interest. Safety indicators can play a key role in providing information on organizational performance, motivating people to work on safety and increasing organizational potential for safety. We will describe the challenges of monitoring and driving system safety. Currently, the same lead indicators are used – explicitly or implicitly – for both purposes. The fact that the selection and use of safety performance indicators is always based on a certain understanding (a model) of the sociotechnical system and safety is often forgotten. We present a theoretical framework for utilizing safety performance indicators in safety–critical organizations that incorporates three types of safety performance indicators – outcome, monitor and drive indicators. We provide examples of each type of indicator and discuss the application of the framework in organizational safety management. We argue that outcome indicators are lag indicators since outcomes always follow something; they are the consequences arising from multiple other situational and contextual factors. Monitor and drive indicators are lead indicators. The main function of the drive indicators is to direct the sociotechnical activity in the organization by motivating certain safety-related activities. Monitor indicators provide a view on the dynamics of the organization: the practices, abilities, skills and motivation of the personnel – the organizational potential for safety. We conclude that organizations should better acknowledge the significance of monitor and drive indicators in safety management.     

Incorporating organizational factors into probabilistic risk assessment of complex socio-technical systems: Principles and theoretical foundations

The current generation of Probabilistic Risk Analysis (PRA), particularly those for technical systems, does not include an explicit representation of the possible impacts of organization and management on the safety performance of equipment and personnel. There are a number of technical challenges in developing a predictive model of organizational safety performance. There is a need for a widely accepted and theoretically sound set of principles on which models of organizational influences could be developed and validated. As a result of a multidisciplinary effort, this paper explores the feasibility of developing such principles and proposes a set of principles for organizational safety risk analysis. Then, as a realization of the proposed modeling principles, a safety risk framework, named Socio-Technical Risk Analysis (SoTeRiA), is developed. SoTeRiA formally integrates the technical system risk models with the social (safety culture and safety climate) and structural (safety practices) aspects of safety prediction models, and provides a theoretical basis for the integration. A systematic view of safety culture and safety climate leaves an important gap in modeling complex system safety risk, and SoTeRiA, describing the relationship between these two concepts, bridges this gap. The framework explicitly recognizes the relationship among constructs at multiple levels of analysis, and extends the PRA framework to include the effects of organizational factors in a more comprehensive and defensible way.     

Safety management in a relationship-oriented culture

A relationship-oriented culture predominates in the Greater China region, where it is more important than in Western countries. Some characteristics of this culture influence strongly the organizational structure and interactions among members in an organization. This study aimed to explore the possible influence of relationships on safety management in relationship-oriented cultures. We hypothesized that organizational factors (management involvement and harmonious relationships) within a relationship-oriented culture would influence supervisory work (ongoing monitoring and task instructions), the reporting system (selective reporting), and teamwork (team communication and co-ordination) in safety management at a group level, which would in turn influence individual reliance complacency, risk awareness, and practices. We distributed a safety climate questionnaire to the employees of Taiwanese high-risk industries. The results of structural equation modeling supported the hypothesis. This article also discusses the findings and implications for safety improvement in countries with a relationship-oriented culture.     

The art of measuring nothing: The paradox of measuring safety in a changing civil aviation industry using traditional safety metrics

Measuring safety as an outcome variable within the ultra-safe civil aviation industry during periods of deliberate organizational change is a difficult, and often fruitless, task. Anticipating eroding safety processes, based on measuring nothing happening over time, does not adequately capture the true state of an evolving safe system, and this is particularly relevant for leaders and managers in a civil aviation industry responsible for maintaining and improving ultra-safe performance while simultaneously managing demanding strategic business goals.In this paper, I will look at the difficulties of measuring safety as an outcome measure in high reliability organizations (HROs) using the traditional measures of incident and accident reporting during periods of deliberate organizational change inspired by the results from a 3 year longitudinal case study of the Norwegian Air Navigation Services provider – Avinor. I will first review the current safety literature relating to safety management systems (SMSs) used in the civil aviation industry. I will then propose a more holistic model that shifts the focus from the traditional safety monitoring mechanisms of risk analysis and trial and error learning, to the natural interactivity within socio-technical systems as found in high reliability organizations. And finally, I will present a summary of the empirical results of an alternate methodology for measuring perceived changes in safety at the operational level as leading indicators of evolving safety at the organizational level.     

Assessing the maintenance unit of a nuclear power plant – identifying the cultural conceptions concerning the maintenance work and the maintenance organization

Various organizational accidents have indicated that the shared interpretations and experiences of the personnel concerning the work, the organization, and the associated risks are of crucial importance for the safety and effectiveness of the operations. These conceptions are an element of the organizational culture. The cultural conceptions should thus be studied and their contribution to the organizational safety and effectiveness should be assessed proactively. Nevertheless, organizational assessments often focus on either the general safety attitudes and/or values of the personnel, or formal organizational structures and the official practices. In this article a case study is reported that was carried out in a Nordic nuclear power plant maintenance unit. We will illustrate how the employees in the organization construct their work, their organization and the demands of the maintenance task. We focus on explicating and assessing the cultural conceptions prevalent in the maintenance organization. Our aim is to illustrate how the cultural conceptions and organizational practices, tools and the organizing of the work and the organizational climate influence each other, and how they relate to the demands of the maintenance work. The principal methods utilized in the case study were organizational culture questionnaire (CULTURE), semi-structured interviews, group working, and personnel development seminars.     

The determinants of employee participation in occupational health and safety management

This article focuses on employee direct participation in occupational health and safety (OHS) management. The article explains what determines employee opportunities to participate in OHS management. The explanatory framework focuses on safety culture and safety management at workplaces. The framework is empirically tested using Estonian cross-sectional, multilevel data of organizations and their employees. The analysis indicates that differences in employee participation in OHS management in the Estonian case could be explained by differences in OHS management practices rather than differences in safety culture. This indicates that throughout the institutional change and shift to the European model of employment relations system, change in management practices has preceded changes in safety culture which according to theoretical argument is supposed to follow culture change.     

Railway safety climate: a study on organizational development

The safety climate of an organization is considered a leading indicator of potential risk for railway organizations. This study adopts the perceptual measurement–individual attribute approach to investigate the safety climate of a railway organization. The railway safety climate attributes are evaluated from the perspective of railway system staff. We identify four safety climate dimensions from exploratory factor analysis, namely safety communication, safety training, safety management and subjectively evaluated safety performance. Analytical results indicate that the safety climate differs at vertical and horizontal organizational levels. This study contributes to the literature by providing empirical evidence of the multilevel safety climate in a railway organization, presents possible causes of the differences under various cultural contexts and differentiates between safety climate scales for diverse workgroups within the railway organization. This information can be used to improve the safety sustainability of railway organizations and to conduct safety supervisions for the government.     

How do organizational practices relate to perceived system safety effectiveness? Perceptions of safety climate and co-worker commitment to safety as workplace safety signals

Introduction: Integrating safety climate research with signaling theory, we propose that individual perceptions of safety climate signal the importance of safety in the organization. Specifically, we expect that three work-related organizational practices (training effectiveness, procedure effectiveness, and work pressure) relate to the broader risk control system in the workplace via individual perceptions of safety climate as a broad management signal. Further, we expect this broad management signal interacts with a local environmental signal (co-worker commitment to safety) to amplify or diminish perceived system safety effectiveness. Method: In a field study of oil and gas workers (N = 219; Study 1), we used mediation modeling to determine the relationships between work-related organizational practices, perceived safety climate, and perceived safety system effectiveness. In a field study of railway construction workers (N = 131; Study 2), we used moderated mediation modeling to explore the conditional role of co-worker commitment to safety. Results: We found that training effectiveness, procedure effectiveness, and work pressure predicted perceived system safety effectiveness indirectly via perceived safety climate (Studies 1 and 2) and that these indirect paths are influenced by co-worker commitment to safety (Study 2). Conclusions: Findings suggest that perceived safety climate is driven in part by work practices, and that perceived safety climate (from managers) and co-worker commitment to safety (from the local environment) interact to shape workplace safety system effectiveness. Practical applications: The insight that training, procedures, and work pressure are meaningful predictors of perceived safety climate as a signal suggests that organizations should be cognizant of the quality of work-related practices for safety. The insight we offer on the competing versus complimentary nature of managerial safety signals (perceived safety climate) and co-worker safety signals (co-worker commitment to safety) could also be used by safety personnel to develop safety interventions directed in both areas.     

组织安全文化的动力初探——行为基础安全

80%以上的事故都是由不安全行为引发的,提高人的安全行为将会大大提高安全的业绩.从安全文化的概念出发,通过讨论几种典型的安全文化模式得出安全文化的3个基本要素:组织因素、个人因素、行为因素.随着现代科技进步和组织管理体系的不断完善,个人和行为因素越发凸现.通过对行为基础安全方法的阐述和分析,概括出了行为基础安全促进安全文化的原因.行为基础安全的引进和实施将会大大提高组织的业绩和安全文化.     

Leadership, psychological capital and safety research: Conceptual issues and future research questions

In this theory-driven literature review we examine how leadership and emerging research in positive organizational behaviour (POB) may inform our understanding of human mechanisms that affect safety outcomes. According to authentic leadership theory, leader self-awareness and self-regulation processes are vital mechanisms in the leader-follower exchange. From emerging research on authentic leadership, we propose that production management values, attitudes, and behaviour are linked to safety climate and safety outcomes in safety critical organizations (SCOs). According to recent developments in management theory, “psychological capital” is comprised of four distinct aspects that can be linked to desirable organizational outcomes and sustained high quality performance in individual workers. From this we offer a research model and five research propositions implicating that authentic leadership directly affects safety outcomes via promoting positive safety climate perceptions. Furthermore, we propose a second path where psychological capital mediates the relationship between authentic leadership, safety climate and safety outcomes in SCOs.     

A human factors and reliability approach to clinical risk management: Evidence from Italian cases

Similarly to the industrial sector in the late 1980s, nowadays leading organizations in the healthcare sector acknowledge the fact that human errors, adverse events and system failures must be managed and controlled. Whilst Human Reliability Analysis (HRA) has been well-accepted and integrated into safety management processes in other industries, the application of such error techniques to the problem of managing the associated risks in healthcare is rare. The main purpose of this research is to analyse clinical risk management (CRM) and patient safety improvement in Italian healthcare organizations, through human factors and human reliability theories. In particular, the specific objectives are to explore the Italian state-of-the-art in CRM, with regard to organizational and managerial issues; to identify and verify the factors influencing the growth and sharing of the safety culture and to understand and describe the possibility of transferring human reliability methodologies and theories to the domain of healthcare.Six case studies belonging to the Italian scenario have been performed, in order to describe the Italian healthcare system and to identify the key influencing factors of CRM policies.Results obtained from within and cross-case analysis give an empirical contribution to the recent introduction of CRM in the Italian context and a theoretical contribution referring to the framework used to analyse CRM in healthcare organizations, and to the indications which emerged on the key factors influencing CRM.     

事故风险控制中的组织管理措施研究

阐述事故风险控制中组织管理措施的内涵与作用机制,并分析实践中由组织管理措施缺失而导致的典型事故案例。指出组织管理措施有助于提升个体的行为安全水平、加强工程技术措施的有效性,以及促进企业安全目标的实现,进而达到降低企业事故风险的目的。在实践中,应将组织管理措施与工程技术措施、行为安全措施紧密结合,相互补充,共同实现控制事故风险的目的。     

A modified accident analysis and investigation model for the general aviation industry: Emphasizing on human and organizational factors

IntroductionCurrently, there is a lack of specific analytical tools for general aviation accidents (GAAs). This has led to loopholes in the prevention of GAAs.MethodsA Swiss Cheese model for general aviation (SCM-GA) is proposed to identify the human and organizational factors involved in GAAs. In the proposed SCM-GA, 5 categories, 45 subcategories, a general aviation safety management system (GA-SMS) and safety culture were developed based on the classic accident causation models combined with the laws and regulations and safety management practices in the general aviation industry.ResultsOne GAA was analyzed using SCM-GA. The human and organizational causes revealed by SCM-GA were more complete than the causes revealed through the accident report. The identification results of the deficiencies in the subcategories of GA-SMS and the safety culture were more consistent with the requirements in the general aviation laws and regulations than the organizational factors in the accident report. Based on the subcategories of SCM-GA, 41 GAAs that occurred between 1996 and 2010 in China were statistically analyzed and χ² test analyses were performed to estimate the statistical strength of the association between two adjacent subcategories of SCM-GA. The results showed that two adjacent subcategories of SCM-GA were significantly associated. They helped to determine the hidden problems in the accident report based on the path of accident.ConclusionsSCM-GA is an accident analysis tool that can comprehensively analyze the human and organizational deficiencies involved in GAAs. The accident causes revealed by SCM-GA were more consistent with the general aviation safety management practices.Practical applicationsGeneral aviation companies should establish their own GA-SMS and safety culture based on the subcategories developed herein. Using SCM-GA for routine safety inspection and accident investigation will help the management and the staff make effective safety decisions to effectively prevent GAAs.     

施工组织非正式网络结构特征与组织安全行为的关系研究

为了提升建筑施工安全管理水平,从社会网络的视角分析了施工组织非正式网络的结构特征对组织安全行为的影响关系,构建了施工组织非正式网络结构特征、安全沟通和组织安全行为的理论模型,实证分析了91个施工组织非正式网络的结构特征,使用多层回归分析的方法验证了上述模型。结果表明:网络密度对组织安全行为有显著正向影响,安全沟通在密度与组织安全行为的关系中起到了部分中介作用;出度中心势对组织安全行为有显著正向影响,安全沟通起到了完全中介作用;入度中心势对组织安全行为没有显著影响,安全沟通没有起到中介作用;中间中心势对组织安全行为没有显著影响,安全沟通没有起到中介作用;平均路径长度对组织安全行为有显著负向影响,安全沟通起到了完全中介作用;聚类系数对组织安全行为有显著正向影响,安全沟通起到了完全中介作用。     

Examining the asymptote in safety progress: a literature review

Many industries are confronted by plateauing safety performance as measured by the absence of negative events – particularly lower-consequence incidents or injuries. At the same time, these industries are sometimes surprised by large fatal accidents that seem to have no connection with their understanding of the risks they faced; or with how they were measuring safety. This article reviews the safety literature to examine how both these surprises and the asymptote are linked to the very structures and practices organizations have in place to manage safety. The article finds that safety practices associated with compliance, control and quantification could be partly responsible. These can create a sense of invulnerability through safety performance close to zero; organizational resources can get deflected into unproductive or counterproductive initiatives; obsolete practices for keeping human performance within a pre-specified bandwidth are sustained; and accountability relationships can encourage suppression of the ‘bad news’ necessary to learn and improve.     

The influence of organizational factors on safety in Taiwanese high-risk industries

Organizational theorists have recently begun to pay research attention to the workforces of emerging countries in Asia, especially the greater China regions. However, little research has focused on the influence of organizational factors on safety in these countries. This study hypothesized that organizational factors, characterized as safety leadership perspective (management commitment, blame culture) and safety climate perspective (harmonious relationships), would influence group-level safety management, which would in turn influence individual level safety awareness and practices. To test this hypothesis, a safety climate questionnaire was distributed to ten Taiwanese plants in high-risk industries. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the linkages among organizational level factors, work-group-level factors, and workers’ safety awareness and practices. We found that safety leadership style and organizational harmony in Taiwanese high-risk industries can exert significant influences on work-group processes, which in turn have greater effects on individual safety awareness and practices. These findings and implications can serve as a basis for safety improvement in areas of the greater China region.     

Understanding organizational diversity management programs: A theoretical framework and directions for future research

With the changing demographic composition of the workforce, managing diversity in organizations is an important organizational function. Organizations have employed varying approaches to diversity management (DM), resulting in varying organizational outcomes. Meanwhile, researchers have called for more theoretical development within the DM area. We present a framework rooted in social and cross‐cultural psychological research, to foster theory development and empirical testing in the area of DM. We also derive several propositions to guide future research on DM and note some boundary conditions that suggest research opportunities of their own. Our framework contributes a theoretical conceptualization that enhances our understanding of organizations' DM efforts, integrates current typologies, and suggests new directions of inquiry for management scholars as well as guidelines for practitioners in the area. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Multiple dimensions of human resource development and organizational performance

Building on strategic human resource management literature, this study investigates the effects of various human resource development (HRD) dimensions on organizational performance. We identify four distinct dimensions of HRD that reflect either quantitative or qualitative approaches from either managerial or employee perspectives. Furthermore, we propose that HRD affects organizational performance by shaping employee outcomes, a prevailing but rarely tested assumption. Multi‐source data collected from 207 manufacturing companies at three time points over a 5‐year period largely support our theoretical propositions. A series of structural path analyses confirm that HRD improves employee commitment and competence, which in turn determine the financial performance of the organization. The quantitative dimensions of HRD (resource investment in HRD) predict only employee commitment. By contrast, the qualitative dimensions of HRD (management support for, and perceived benefits of, HRD) enhance both employee commitment and competence. Our analysis also demonstrates synergistic interactions between the quantitative and qualitative dimensions of HRD in predicting employee outcomes. This study elaborates the distinct values of different dimensions of HRD and highlights the significance of employee outcomes as the mediating mechanism between HRD and firm performance. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

施工组织正式网络结构特征对组织安全行为的影响关系研究

为提升建筑施工安全管理水平,探讨施工组织正式网络的结构特征对组织安全行为的影响关系。基于社会网络分析方法,引入安全沟通作为中介变量,建立施工组织正式网络结构特征、安全沟通和组织安全行为的假设模型。基于91个施工组织正式网络结构特征分析,使用多层回归分析方法检验假设模型。结果表明:网络密度、出度中心势和聚类系数均显著正向影响组织安全行为;中间中心势和平均路径长度均显著负向影响组织安全行为;入度中心势对组织安全行为影响不显著;安全沟通分别在出度中心势和中间中心势与组织安全行为的关系中起完全中介作用;安全沟通分别在密度、平均路径长度和聚类系数与组织安全行为的关系中起部分中介作用;安全沟通在入度中心势与组织安全行为的关系中未起到中介作用。     

Human resource management practices and organizational injury rates

Introduction: This study investigated the extent to which five human resource management (HRM) practices—systematic selection, extensive training, performance appraisal, high relative compensation, and empowerment—simultaneously predicted later organizational-level injury rates. Methods: Specifically, the association between these HRM practices (assessed via on-site audits by independent observers) with organizational injury rates collected by a national regulatory agency one and two years later were modeled. Results: Results from 49 single-site UK organizations indicated that, after controlling for industry-level risk, organization size, and the other four HRM practices, only empowerment predicted lower subsequent organizational-level injury rates. Practical Applications: Findings from the current study have important implications for the design of HRM systems and for organizational-level policies and practices associated with better employee safety.