Abstract:The way organizational culture can influence safety has been a topic in safety research and accident investigations for decades. This has led to an increasing interest from regulators to include the concept of safety culture into the sphere of risk regulation. In the Norwegian petroleum regulations, a requirement for a "sound health, safety and environment culture" was introduced in 2002. The article presents a qualitative study of the perceived effects of this requirement on safety, seen from the perspective of both the regulator and the regulated companies.The study shows that introducing the concept of safety culture into regulation can have positive effects both within the regulated companies and within the regulator's own organization. While certainly not being suited for a "command and control" approach to regulation, requirements to a "sound HSE culture" serves as an important policy statement in Norwegian regulations. It influences the whole institutional field to explore new approaches to safety. Introducing the concept of safety (or HSE) culture into the regulatory vocabulary has served as a sensitizing concept for both the regulator and the industry, thereby increasing both parties' ability to address informal and systemic aspects of safety.
This paper characterizes changes in Norway's civil protection and emergency preparedness five years after the Oslo and Utøya terror attacks. Data from 48 interviews conducted in the period 2014 to 2016 with civil servants within different levels of the justice sector were qualitatively analyzed. The inductive analysis shows four main changes made related to Norway's civil protection and emergency preparedness within the Ministry of Justice and Public Security: 1) a change in risk perception regarding awareness of security-related risks; 2) the generation of several plans and measures; 3) structural changes at various levels within the justice sector; and 4) increased resources allocated to societal safety and security. The changes following the Oslo terror attacks were not solely in response to the terror attacks, but also the result of previous and subsequent events and reports. The current organization of public administration, however, still fosters siloed thinking and turf wars around the principle of responsibility and each sector's respective area of expertise. Most of the implemented changes can be characterized as structural; diagnoses made after the terror attacks pointed at cultural aspects.
IntroductionIn the post-war era, Norway has been fortunate in facing only a handful of large-scale crises and terror-related events (Rykkja, Laegreid et al. 2011). As a result, a fairly untroubled society has been able to attend primarily to the welfare of its inhabitants (Kuhnle 2000, Wollebaek et al. 2012). On July 22, 2011, the nation was shocked when an armed right-wing extremist single-handedly bombed the Government Complex in Oslo and thereafter shot young political aspirants attending a youth camp on the island of Utøya. In total, 77 people were killed during these terror attacks.The aftermath of disasters and national crises represent an opportune time to examine governmental strategies for civil protection and emergency preparedness (Birkmann, Buckle et al. 2010). They provide a moment for self-reflection and a chance to learn from previous mistakes and weaknesses in the governmental system. Changes are usually implemented to demonstrate handling capacity or rectify specific gaps in the system (March and Olson 1983). Lessons learned are ideally applied to a broad context, where the knowledge gained is used to address not only the specific problem but also other issues that may arise from these inadequacies.Nevertheless, in these situations, society also often shows an inclination toward morality plays and blame games (Boin, Hart et al. 2006). A focusing event, such as a terror attack, often leads to excessive fixation on solving the specific problem brought to light by the event (Birkland 2006). Leaders feel pressured to take charge and prevent a similar crisis, and they risk overreacting by way of regulation or other actions and measures in response to the event (de Ridder and Reinders 2014, van Tol 2016). This spontaneous reaction is in part due to media coverage or "mediazation" (Helsloot, Boi...
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