Safety culture and reasons for risk-taking at a large steel-manufacturing company: Investigating the worker perspective

Abstract

a b s t r a c tWorkers in the steel-manufacturing industry face many safety risks due to the nature of the job. How well safety procedures and regulations are followed within an organization is considered to be influenced by the reigning culture of the organization. The aim of this study was to investigate and describe safety culture and risk-taking at a large steel-manufacturing company in Sweden by exploring workers' experiences and perceptions of safety and risks. Ten focus group interviews were conducted with a total of 66 workers. In the interviews, the situation of safety at work was discussed in a semi-structured manner. The material was analyzed inductively using qualitative content analysis. The analysis resulted in a thorough description of safety culture and risk-taking at the company, based on the following five main categories: 1. Acceptance of risks, one simply has to accept the safety risks of the work environment, 2. Individual responsibility for safety, the responsibility for safe procedures rests to the largest extent on the individual, 3. Trade-off between productivity and safety, these are conflicting entities, wanting to produce as well as wanting to work safely, 4. Importance of communication, it is needed for safety actions to be effective, and 5. State-of-the-day and external conditions, an interplay between these factors affect risk-taking. In sociotechnical systems theory it is acknowledged that there are interactions between social and technical factors in organizations. The findings of this study are interpreted to be in line with a sociotechnical understanding of safety culture and risk-taking.

Sound the alarm: Health and safety risks associated with alarm response for salaried and retained metropolitan firefighters

“…Given that there is limited existing research addressing this topic, the present study was exploratory and intended to provide a basis for future research efforts in this area. Qualitative methods are common in exploratory research (Nordlöf et al, 2015) and are considered most appropriate for developing the 'theoretical underpinning' of future quantitative research (Walsh et al, 2013). Specifically, this study used semi-structured group interviews to elicit procedures and risks surrounding alarm response for salaried and retained metropolitan firefighters.…”

Development of a Preliminary Model for Evaluating Occupational Health and Safety Risk Management Maturity in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

“…Prevention by design Not specified [83][84][85] Commitment of management Not specified [24,59,79] Worker commitment and participation -Percent response to questionnaires [24,59,78,86] OHS-related behaviour -Number of observations of unsafe or deviant actions [78,87] Compliance with OHS guidelines or regulations -Number of penalties for non-compliance [8,23,40,54,88] OHS inspection -Number of inspections carried out [25,40,79,86] Equipment and preventive maintenance Not specified [25,79] Work setting and situations potentially at risk Not specified [7,8,20,24,79] Evaluation of proactive indicators Not specified [74,79,86] Technology -Degree of integration of technology into the processes [33,89] Budget -The amount allotted to OHS [33,40,59] Workload -Evaluation of workload [90] …”

Safety Culture in Financial Trading: An Analysis of Trading Misconduct Investigations

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