Sue Cox

Safety culture: Philosopher's stone or man of straw?

Abstract This introductory paper to the special issue on Safety Culture considers some of the key issues relating to the nature, measurement and utility of this concept. It argues that there are many important questions still unanswered: what is safety culture and what is its theoretical basis (the question of definition), is it synonymous with safety climate, what are the essential characteristics of a ‘good’ safety culture and how might they be best measured, what are the reliability, validity and utility of existing measures of safety culture, and how does the concept contribute-if at all-to good safety systems and performance? Can an organizations safety culture be related to additional parameters (such as accident and incident performance) which are judged both within and outside the organization by the full range of stake-holders? Finally, the authors consider future issues and the future direction of work in this area.

Assessing safety culture in offshore environments

This paper discusses a joint industry and UK Health and Safety Executive research project on the assessment of safety culture in offshore environments. It particularly describes the development of a safety culture assessment methodology which is based on a systems approach to organisational culture. This approach combines a number of assessment methods, such as: questionnaires, focus groups, behavioural observations and situational audits, to describe and explore the efficacy of health and safety management systems. The evidence produced by these methods are complementary rather than alternatives and provide different views of organisational health and safety culture by tapping many aspects of the organisations structure, function and behaviour. The assessment techniques have been piloted within collaborating organisations, both within the UK and the Gulf of Mexico. The culmination of the work is the “Safety Climate Assessment Toolkit” which is now published and available for use by managers and safety professionals within the offshore oil extraction industry.

The architecture of employee attitudes to safety in the manufacturing sector

This study examines the relationships between components of organisational safety climate, including: employee attitudes to organisational and individual safety issues; perceptions of the physical work environment and perceptions of workplace hazards; and relates these to self‐reported levels of safety activity. It also attempts to replicate the explicative model derived by Cheyne et al. in a similar study within the manufacturing sector. Data were collected from a large manufacturing organisation using a questionnaire. A total of 708 valid questionnaires were returned and formed the basis for the subsequent analyses. These data showed that a common structure of attitudes to safety issues and perceptions of the work environment can be constructed in line with the previous model, with a few differences, providing some evidence of a sector‐wide safety culture. The strength of employees’ attitudes with regard to safety management and individual responsibility once again played central roles in the model and are consistent with earlier findings. Comparisons are made between the two organisations and mean scores on each of the model components show that there are differences between the two organisations in terms of individual responsibility and personal involvement, as well as levels of safety activity and perceived levels of workplace hazards. The results are discussed in terms of generating general models of attitudes to safety, which in turn may facilitate climate change.

Trust Relations in High-Reliability Organizations

Workplace trust has been recognized by researchers and practitioners alike to be an important component of an effective safety culture. However, despite this, the concept of trust as it relates to safety has been underresearched, particularly within high-reliability organizations. This article examines the importance of trust relations and their concomitant impact on safety culture within the specific context of high-reliability organizations using relevant literatures. The article then explores the implications of high and low trust situations for safety through case studies conducted within the nuclear and offshore industries as exemplars of organizations operating within high-reliability sectors.

Modelling Employee Attitudes to Safety

This paper describes the modeling of employee attitudes to safety in three industrial sectors operating in the UK. Gauging employee attitudes to safety has become an increasingly important method of appraising human factors issues in many organizations. This study is based on data collected from a large survey (n = 2429) of employee attitudes to safety. It attempts to describe the subjective architectures, or explicative model, of employee attitudes to safety in these sectors by relating these attitudes to their appraisals of commitment to safety in their organization. A comparison of models across sector models is also made. The data support the claim that the architecture of attitudes to safety is, at least in part, dependent on the industrial context, or work environment. Differences were found in factor mean scores as well as differences in the relationships between factors in structural equation models for each sector. The models showed that perceptions of management actions and safety training were ...

Stress in schools: an organizational perspective

Abstract Over the past 25 years, there has been much research into the nature of stress in schools. These data have allowed an analysis of this difficult problem, although much of what has been done has focused on the individual teacher, at the expense of a more organizational view. This paper describes a study of stress in schools which develops this organizational perspective; it reports on the nature of stress in schools and on likely strategies suggested by teachers for the better management of stressful situations. The strategies suggested during the study related to the school as an organization, and did not focus on the individual teacher. The adoption of a systems approach by the authors provided an interesting vehicle for modelling the problems faced within schools, and allowed the health of the school to be considered alongside the health of its teachers. By its very nature, it argued strongly for a comprehensive programme of stress management in schools, and against simple unitary or ‘band aid’...

The Impact of a Business School on Regional Economic Development: a Case Study

This paper investigates the impact of a major extension to Lancaster Universitys Management School on the North West regional economy. It differs from earlier university impact studies since the estimated impact is not confined to backward linkage effects but focuses specifically on the forward linkage effects that will occur as a result of greater engagement with firms in the regions SME sector. The paper demonstrates that the expansion of the university sector can have far greater beneficial effects on their regional economies than is indicated by conventional impact studies. Specifically, the provision of business advice to SMEs can be a significant factor in increasing their sales volume.

Perceptions of safety climate at different employment levels

The notion of safety climate has become central to contemporary theories of occupational health and safety management. Studies of safety climate, focusing on attitudes and perceptions, have suggested that there are variations in both the architecture and intensity of employee attitudes to safety depending on employment level. This paper explores the nature of such differences. The study described here involved the comparison of data, gathered using a self-administered survey instrument, on employee attitudes to safety across three levels (managers, supervisors and general employees). A total of 967 general employees, 123 first-line supervisors and 97 managers from two large manufacturing organizations took part in the study. The data were compared in three ways. First, the factor structure of attitudes in each group was examined, then possible differences between factor scores were investigated and finally the structural relationships between climate factors were compared across groups. Multisample confirmatory facor analysis showed that the factor structures were verv simila across the groups. In terms of the relationships between the factors, however, the architectures illustrated quite different structures This, taken with the range of differences in the intensity of attitudes and perceptions, suggested that, while managers, supervisors and general employees shared the same definition of saferv factors, their perceptions of these factors and how they inter-related proved to be quite different. Implications of the results are discussed in terms of promoting a positive culture for safety.

Effects of simulated repetitive work on urinary catecholamine excretion.

An experimental study was conducted to investigate the effects of short-cycle repetitive work on catecholamine excretion rates. The effects of payment method and pacing requirement were considered. The data showed significant effects of these independent variables and of time of day on adrenaline and noradrenaline excretion. These three factors interacted in producing their effects. Suggestions are made as to the psychological and physical mechanisms underpinning these effects.

Occupational Health: Control and Monitoring of Psychosocial and Organisational Hazards at Work

This paper considers the conceptualizations which underpin the traditional approach to occupational health and offers a critique; much ofwhich points up the importance ofpsychosocial and organizational issues. It then explores the possible devel opment of a new 3 factor model of concern - organisational health - based on health, work and organisation. It takes as its thesis the need to address the problems posed by psychosocial and organisational hazards at work and the argument that these can be managed effectively within the framework of practice that has proved successful for the more tangible workplace hazards.