1. Product Safety Culture: A new variant of safety culture?
Lucia Suhanyiova, Rhona Flin & Amy Irwin
University of Aberdeen
Background
Aims
Discussion
Product safety (PS) is crucial for consumers – company culture can affect well-being
Numerous incidents (e.g. Takata airbag issues, Toyota unintended acceleration)
Little research on the culture of product safety, compared to worker/process safety post-Chernobyl (Health and Safety Commission, 1993)
Some research in food safety culture (e.g. Powell et al., 2011) and product safety culture in juvenile industry (Zhu et al., 2016)
Both areas seem to be measuring PS culture using existing safety culture scales
What is PSC?
“Set of attitudes, norms, beliefs and behaviours of employees that affect the integrity of a product as a result of existing safety practices.”
(based on Health & Safety Commission, 1993)
Understand what constitutes exemplar product safety culture (PSC)
Examine how design, manufacturing and servicing of products is affected by organizational culture
Can existing dimensions from safety culture be applied to PSC?
Develop theoretical model for PSC
Main dimensions from safety culture on worker/process safety apparent (e.g. management commitment, communication)
Unique emphasis on product safety ethic
Knowledge and background do influence awareness and understanding of product safety, and may influence the level of management commitment
Differences in culture may also be shaped by the type of the product
Next steps
Examine what behaviours constitute good product safety (PS survey)
How do trust in management and product safety ethic affect product safety behaviour
Results
Methods
Product Safety Culture Working Model
Communication
Interview studies
Exploratory interviews with PS subject matter experts to identify relevant dimensions of Product Safety Culture
2. Delphi Task
Using PS subject matter experts to evaluate the extracted dimensions from interviews
3. Case studies
Examined PS culture dimensions in practice
Access workforce to provide better cultural overview
Two case studies comprising interviews, focus groups, unstructured observations, document analysis and database analysis
4. Product Safety Culture Survey (in progress)
Survey to examine what constitutes good product safety behaviour, and to what extent do trust and product safety ethic play a role in workplace behaviours
Trust
Product Safety
Management Commitment
Product Safety Behaviour
Product Safety Ethic
Safety Systems
Predictors of PSC similar to those in worker/process safety (e.g. communication, management commitment to safety, safety systems, productivity and pressure, risk mitigation, trust) – where risk mitigation and productivity/pressure are subsumed within safety systems
Unique predictors associated with PSC were awareness/understanding of PS (which is considered as an aspect of safety systems), product safety ethic and reputation (not included due to low amount of explicit references but can be related to product safety ethic)
Product safety ethic - referred to behaviours associated with good PS
Participants mentioned that they often imagined themselves/their family members using the product to ensure it was safely designed/manufactured
Trust and product safety ethic considered to be mediators of the relationship between management commitment and product safety behaviours– full extent of interaction to be tested
Employee PS behaviour identified as resulting outcome variable which can impact on PS
Different sites had products of varying complexity which influenced workforce selection – e.g. Site B had fewer employees with engineering background due to simpler product assembly – therefore affecting awareness/understanding aspect of PS
Methods for Case Studies
Site A – 24-27th May, 2016
Site B - 20–23rd June, 2016
References
Health and Safety Commission. (1993). Organising for safety: Third report of the human factors study group of Advisory Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installations. London: HMSO
Powell, D. A., Jacob, C. J., & Chapman, B. J. (2011). Enhancing food safety culture to reduce rates of foodborne illness. Food Control, 22,
Zhu, A. Y., Zedtwitz, M., Assimakopoulos, D., & Fernandes, K. (2016). The impact of organizational culture on concurrent engineering, design-for-safety, and product safety performance. International Journal of Production Economics, 176, 69-81
This PhD studentship is sponsored by ESRC and a manufacturing company.
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