Assessing Organisational Safety Culture

In Chapter 1 the relationship between the elements of a layered generic culture model was introduced and developed into an holistic integrated safety-culture paradigm ( Figure 1.7 ). Based upon the proposal that there is linkage between shared organisational safety-beliefs and safety-behaviours, Chapter 2 tested the proposal with some safety events. Although recognised as a small sample, the reported events suggest that shared safety-beliefs can significantly influence employees’ safety-behaviours. The indication is that if safety-beliefs are poor this will be reflected in poor human performance, possibly causing deterioration in engineered safety defences and management safety procedures. This outcome can move a facility’s accident risk towards an intolerable level.