1. “Safety Culture: An Integrative Review”
AVIA3710 AVIATION SAFETY MANAGEMENT 2
Presentation
Critical Review of Refereed Paper:
“Safety Culture: An Integrative Review”
Presented by
Dickson Chan ( )
Thursday, 26 October 2006

2. OUTLINE - Structure of Presentation
Introduction
Summary & Key Points
Critique
Conclusion
References

3. INTRODUCTION - The Paper…
Summary
Critique
Conclusion
INTRODUCTION - The Paper…
Title: “Safety Culture: An Integrative Review”
Authors: Wiegmann, Zhang, von Thaden, Sharma & Gibbons
Aviation Human Factors Division (University of Illinois)
International Journal of Aviation Psychology
Vol 14 No. 2, pp

4. INTRODUCTION - Background
Summary
Critique
Conclusion
INTRODUCTION - Background
Importance of Safety Culture
High-risk systems
Catastrophic Consequences
What has been done?
Question: How do you define Safety Culture?

5. SUMMARY - Aim / Purpose The Problem: Lack of Consensus!
Introduction
Summary
Critique
Conclusion
SUMMARY - Aim / Purpose
The Problem: Lack of Consensus!
How to define? How to access / measure?
What are the indicators & How many?
AIM:
Compare and synthesise various literature on Safety Culture
Establish commonalities and Identify the critical features
Issues when assessing safety culture

6. SUMMARY – Method / Approach
Introduction
Summary
Critique
Conclusion
SUMMARY – Method / Approach
Qualitative Research… why qualitative?
Review numerous reports relating to Safety Culture from various industries
Comparative study on definitions, indicators of safety culture and assessment methods
Examining differences and similarities

7. SUMMARY - Safety Culture Definitions
Introduction
Summary
Critique
Conclusion
SUMMARY - Safety Culture Definitions
Compared 19 definitions from various sources (Method / Approach)
Definitions from Aviation (4), Other Transportation Industry (3), Nuclear Power (3), mining (1), Oil & Gas (3) and Theoretical (5)
Differences exist both within and across Industries
Example
“Safety Culture: A group of individuals guided in their behaviour by their joint belief in the importance of safety, and their shared understanding that every member willingly upholds the group’s safety norms and will support other members to that common end.” Helmreich & Merritt (1998); Aviation
“Safety Culture is defined as the attitudes, values, norms and beliefs that a particular group of people share with respect to risk and safety”
Mearns, Flin, Gordon & Fleming (1998); Offshore oil and gas

8. SUMMARY - Safety Culture Critical Features
Introduction
Summary
Critique
Conclusion
SUMMARY - Safety Culture Critical Features
Safety Culture is a concept defined at the group level or higher that refers to the shared values among all the group or organisation members
Safety Culture is concerned with formal safety issues in an organisation and closely related to, but not restricted to, the management and supervisory systems
Safety Culture emphasises the contribution from everyone at every level of an organisation
The safety culture of an organisation has an impact on its members’ behaviour at work
Safety culture is reflected in an organisation’s willingness to develop and learn from errors, incidents and accidents
Safety Culture is relatively enduring, stable, and resistant to change

9. SUMMARY - Indicators of Safety Culture
Introduction
Summary
Critique
Conclusion
SUMMARY - Indicators of Safety Culture
Organisational Commitment
Management Involvement
“Extent to which higher level managers get personally involved in critical safety initiatives”
Employee Empowerment
“Empowered attitude can lead to increased motivation”
Reward Systems
Reporting Systems
Slightly different to those listed by Hudson (1999)

10. SUMMARY – Assessing Safety Culture
Introduction
Summary
Critique
Conclusion
SUMMARY – Assessing Safety Culture
Many different methods used to access safety culture
No standardised tools that can be used across domains
Authors proposed method of assessing safety culture
Main issues:
Methods of Measurements
Level of Assessment
Assessment Procedures and Implementation
Interaction Among Factors
Validating Measurement Tools

11. Adapted from Helmreich and Merritt, 1998, p.134
Introduction
Summary
Critique
Conclusion
CRITIQUE – Strengths / Weakness & Validity
Weakness:
Lack of quantitative data to support key points
No mention of Westrum’s Reactive to Proactive model (Hudson, 1999)
Failed to mention about effects of some ‘factors’ on safety culture:
e.g. Professional Culture, Training, National Culture (Helmreich & Merritt, 1998)
Adapted from Helmreich and Merritt, 1998, p.134
The evolution of Safety Cultures
Adapted from Hudson, 1999, p.96

12. CRITIQUE – Strengths / Weakness & Validity
Introduction
Summary
Critique
Conclusion
CRITIQUE – Strengths / Weakness & Validity
Strengths
Use of ‘authoritative’ literature by well-known academics in the field
Dealt with the key areas of Safety Culture
Recognised other industry’s development on Safety Culture theory
Validity
Referred to existing literatures; represents existing knowledge
Subjectivity in selection of literature?

13. CRITIQUE – Importance / Significance
Introduction
Summary
Critique
Conclusion
CRITIQUE – Importance / Significance
Comprehensive Study / Review on Safety Culture Literature
Referred to different industries (creation of a multi-modal definition?)
Focus on the contentious areas of Safety Culture:
Definition
Indicators (that reflect safety culture)
Assessing / Measuring Safety Culture

14. CRITIQUE – Implications & Generalisability
Introduction
Summary
Critique
Conclusion
CRITIQUE – Implications & Generalisability
Relevance and applicable to ‘high-risk’ industries
Improvement / enhancement on the definition of safety culture
Enable better understanding of safety culture
Potential developments on analysis techniques on safety culture
Establishing common grounds between ‘high-risk’ industries
May lead to development of strategies for improving safety culture across industries
Future researches could be taken in this area to test the frameworks

15. CONCLUSION Solid and comprehensive review of safety culture
Introduction
Summary
Critique
Conclusion
CONCLUSION
Solid and comprehensive review of safety culture
Research applicable to “high-risk” industries, not only within Aviation
Identifying commonalities to develop frameworks for all industries
Study represents existing knowledge in Safety Culture

16. REFERENCES
Braithwaite, G. (2001). Attitude or lattitude?: Australian aviation safety, Aldershot, England: Ashgate.
Cox, S. & Flin, R. (1998). Safety culture: philosopher’s stone or man of straw. Work & Stress. 12 (3),
Helmreich, R. & Merritt, A. (1998). Culture at Work in Aviation and Medicine, Aldershot, England: Ashgate.
Hudson, P. (1999). Safety Culture – The Way ahead? Theory and Practical Principles. Proceedings of the inaugural International Aviation Safety Management Conference "Profiting through safety", Perth, October 1999.
Hudson, P. (2001). Aviation Safety Culture. Proceedings of the Safeskies 2001 Conference, Canberra, 1-2 November 2001.