Safety Culture and High-Risk Environments-EBooksHSSE WORLD

Safety Culture and High-Risk Environments A Leadership Perspective by Cindy L. Caldwell. This book is written for the leader who manages the risks of hazardous processes. It reflects the role of authentic leadership in influencing safety culture and organizational resilience to failure and provides a practical guide for leaders to assess, monitor, and improve their culture and capacity for resilience. The general principles and tools are applicable to all high-risk domains from banking to healthcare to nuclear power.

Table of Contents

Understanding Organizational Factors in High-Risk Environments

Historically, accidents within an organization have been explained in terms of technology and human factors without taking into consideration the organization’s values, beliefs, and behaviors. These cultural dimensions can also create limitations in organizational systems. In certain sectors, such as nuclear power and petrochemical industries, the complexity of the organization–technology interface introduces unforeseen interactions among system components that have resulted
in catastrophic accidents.

Safety Culture and High-Risk Environments Book’s cover

High-risk industries such as the nuclear power industry became interested in culture in the early 1980s. The International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group (INSAG) first coined the term safety culture when referring to the failure at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power station (Sorensen, 2002). INSAG (1991) acknowledged that after a certain point in the maturation of safety systems, technology alone cannot achieve further improvements in safety; instead, organizational and cultural factors become more important.

How to Develop a Safety Culture?

1.1 SIMPLE TO COMPLEX

The early evolution of the management of safety-related programs in the United States began with a compliance-based inspection focus brought on by the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) in the 1970s. As a result, procedures, training, and tools were established and continuously improved to increase awareness, reduce risk, and ensure compliance. Although OSHA and its enforcement powers had a positive effect on safety in the United States, reducing fatalities and disabling injuries by more than 50%, there was limited attention to long-term performance or continuous improvement.

Enhancing performance & health and safety culture

The content of the Safety Culture and High-Risk Environments

Section I
Chapter 1 Understanding Organizational Factors in High-Risk Environments
Chapter 2 Review of the Literature
Human Fatigue Risk Management
Organizational Culture, Safety Culture, and Safety Climate
Chapter 3 Case Study Exploring Leadership, Work Team Engagement, and Safety Performance in a High-Risk Work Environment
Lean Safety Transforming Your Safety Culture with Lean Management
Section II
Occupational Ergonomics A Practical Approach
Chapter 4 Creating the Capacity for Organizational Resilience
Chapter 5 Toolkit for Assessing and Monitoring Leadership and Safety Culture
Example Assessment of Leadership and Safety Culture at a Chemical Facility