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Defining safety culture
The trend around safety culture originated after Chernobyl brought attention to the importance of safety culture and the impact of managerial and human factors on the outcome of safety performance (Flin et al. 2000; IAEA 1986). The term ‘safety culture’ was first used in INSAG’s (1988) ‘Summary Report on the Post-Accident Review Meeting on the Chernobyl Accident’ where safety culture was described as: “That assembly of characteristics and attitudes in organizations and individuals which establishes that, as an overriding priority, nuclear plant safety issues receive the attention warranted by their significance.” This concept was introduced as a means of explaining how the lack of knowledge and understanding of risk and safety by the employees and organization contributed to the outcome of the disaster.
Since then, a number of definitions of safety culture have been introduced. The U.K. Health and Safety Commission developed one of the most commonly used definitions of safety culture, which describes safety culture as: “The product of individual and group values, attitudes, perceptions, competencies, and patterns of behaviour that determine the commitment to, and the style and proficiency of, an organization’s health and safety management” (HSC, 1993a, p. 23).
Another widely used term, developed by Advisory Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installations (ACSNI) (yr), describes safety culture as: “The safety culture of an organization is the product of individual and group values, attitudes, perceptions, competencies and patterns of behavior that determine the commitment to, and the style and proficiency of, an organization’s health and safety management.”
“Organizations with a positive safety culture are characterized by communications founded on mutual trust, by shared perceptions of the importance of safety and by confidence in the efficacy of preventive measures.”
Since the 1980s there has been a large amount of research conducted...