Studying organisational cultures and their effects on safety

Abstract

How do organisational cultures influence safety? To answer this question requires a strategy for investigating organisational culture. There are various research strategies available. By far the most widely used is the perception survey. An alternative is for researchers is to immerse themselves in one or more organisations, making detailed observations about activities and drawing inferences about the nature of the organisation's culture (the ethnographic method). A third technique makes use of the wealth of material that is assembled by inquiries into major accidents. This paper describes how this material can be used to provide insights into organisational cultures. It draws on specific examples from the author's own work as well as the cultural analysis carried out by the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. It concludes with some additional suggestions for carrying out research on safetyrelevant aspects of organisational culture.

Resilience Engineering: An Integrative Review of Fundamental Concepts and Directions for Future Research in Safety Management

“…The measurement of a similar concept would be expected to generate a relatively superficial description of RE. What these approaches are unable to extricate are the dynamic work practices and social interactions that occur every day in teams and groups, between managers and workers, and between those conducting the work and the work itself; because these cannot be described in the words of a survey question [80]. Recognizing and understanding these interactions are clearly important as they contribute to the 'success' aspects of safety, and resilience [81].…”

“…Three of the indicators suggested by the author; learning, just and flexible, are also integral to safety culture [80]; while some are also associated with managerial resilience [76].…”

“…However, a drawback with ethnography is that it can be very time consuming [80]. Another shortfall of this study was that it was limited to one organisation, and concentrated on actors internal to the organisation.…”

Patient Safety Culture and Factors that Impact That Culture in Tehran Hospitals in 2013

“…Safety culture is the outcome of a combination of attitudes, perceptions, competencies, and patterns of behavior within working groups that determine the style, commitment, and health and safety management skills within organizations (12).…”

Regulating the intangible. Searching for safety culture in the Norwegian petroleum industry

“…Turner, 1978;Cox & Flin, 1998;Guldenmund, 2000;Richter & Koch, 2004;Hopkins, 2006, Reiman & Oedewald, 2006Antonsen, 2009a;Naevestad, 2010;Rollenhagen, 2010;Blazsin & Guldenmund, 2015). Furthermore, the concept of culture has been highlighted in numerous investigations into a wide variety of disasters, such as the train derailment at Sjursøya in Norway in 2009(AIBN, 2011, the Fukushima nuclear meltdown (NAIIC, 2012) and the terrorist attacks in Oslo in 2011 (NOU 2012: 14).…”