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Safety Science 45 (2007) 9931012 www.elsevier.com/locate/ssci

The nature of safety culture: A survey of the state-of-the-art

RaWq M. Choudhry
a

a,

, Dongping Fang

a,1

, Sherif Mohamed

b,2

(Tsinghua-Gammon) Construction Safety Research Center, School of Civil Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China b Center for Infrastructure Engineering and Management, GriYth University, Queensland, Australia Received 18 January 2006; received in revised form 26 September 2006; accepted 28 September 2006

Abstract This paper reviews the literature on safety culture, placing particular focus on research undertaken from 1998 onwards. The term culture is clariWed as it is typically applied to organizations, to safety, and particularly to construction safety. Some clariWcation in terms of positive safety culture, safety culture models, levels of aggregation and safety performance is provided by presenting appropriate empirical evidence and its theoretical developments. In general, safety culture is thought to inXuence employees attitudes and behavior in relation to an organizations ongoing health and safety performance. Implications for future research in the area are addressed, as in recent years safety culture has become the focus of much attention in all industries, including the construction industry. 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Safety culture; Organizational culture; Construction safety; Behavior-based safety; Safety climate; Safety management system

1. Introduction In order to contribute to the overall reduction of workplace accidents, workplace safety has been studied from diVerent points of view (Silva et al., 2004). Whether technical or
Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 10 62795113; fax: +86 10 62773661. E-mail addresses: choudhry03@gmail.com (R.M. Choudhry), fangdp@tsinghua.edu.cn (D. Fang), s.mohamed@ griYth.edu.au (S. Mohamed). 1 Tel.: +86 10 62795113; fax: +86 10 62773661. 2 Tel.: +61 7 55528575; fax: +61 7 55528065. 0925-7535/$ - see front matter 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ssci.2006.09.003
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psychological, these viewpoints lead to the promotion of a positive safety culture a concept intrinsically linked to organizational culture that has attracted much attention across a broad spectrum of industries. Despite the key role played by organizational culture in determining an organizations success or failure, there is no apparent consensus on how to describe the culture of an organization (Guldenmund, 2000). Furthermore, unresolved debate persists as to whether an organization has or is a culture. Against this brief background, it is not surprising that no accepted model of the safety culture exists. This paper therefore reviews existing literature on safety culture, and provides some clariWcation in terms of deWnitions, empirical evidence and its theoretical development. Based on a critical review of related published works (from 1998 onwards), the paper analyzes diVerent schools of thought and views in the construction safety context. Although the development of a safety culture model is beyond the scope of this paper, a conceptual model is proposed that seeks to assess safety culture in general, and on construction sites in particular. The next section summarizes organizational culture, as a review of safety culture may not be complete without it when site operations are inXuenced by organizational characteristics (Sawacha et al., 1999). 2. Organizational culture The American Heritage Dictionary deWnes culture as the totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought considered as the expression of a particular period, class, community, or population. The organizational development community might have borrowed the term culture from anthropologists. Brigges (1992) argues that there are several important diVerences between culture as commonly used by anthropologists and culture as applied to organizations by management consultants. He noted that like many who borrow concepts from other Welds, organizational writers have over-simpliWed matters to such an extent that their concept has lost much of its connection to the usages that are current in the Weld to which it belongs. Nevertheless, broader issues including derivation of the notion of culture from social, ethnic or other origins are not emphasized here. According to Hofstede (1990), organizational culture is considered the top-management business. Schein (1992) deWnes organizational culture as a pattern of basic assumptions invented, discovered, or developed by a given group as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration; that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems. Schein (1992) uses the term organizational culture as observed behavioral regularities when people interact (language, customs and traditions, rituals), group norms, espoused values, formal philosophy, rules of the game, climate, embedded skills, habits of thinking/mental models/linguistic paradigms, shared meanings and root metaphors or integrating symbols, which shows the complexity of meanings of a culture. According to Reason (1997, p.192), Uttals (1983) deWnition of organizational culture most closely captures its essence: shared values (what is important) and beliefs (how things work) that interact with a companys people, organizational structures and control systems to produce behavioral norms (the way we do things around here). Cooper (2000) deWnes corporate culture as to reXect shared behaviors, beliefs, attitudes and values regarding organizational goals, functions and procedures. In short, organizational culture

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is the interaction between organization and individuals, where employees behavior can change through mutual interaction. Guldenmund (2000) recapitulates that organizational culture consists of the following seven characteristics: (1) holistic construct; (2) stable; (3) multidimensional; (4) shared by (national culture, corporate culture, organizational culture, departmental culture, group culture and psychological climate); (5) various aspects (diVerent cultures or a safety culture); (6) practices (norms and values, ritual, heroes and symbols); and (7) functional the way we do things around here. In the national culture context, Hofstede (1990) visualizes culture as consisting of multiple layers, norms and values at the central core; the next layer consists of rituals; the following as heroes; and the outer layer of symbols. According to Hofstede, only the three layers rituals, heroes and symbols collectively called practices, are relevant to an organization. He explains that norms and values are cultured during childhood through parental upbringing and schooling, and remain relatively stable throughout peoples lives. Guldenmund (2000) summarizes organizational culture as a relatively stable, multidimensional, holistic construct shared by groups of organizational members that supplies a frame of reference and which gives meaning to and or is typically revealed in certain practices. The challenge in this paper is to deWne construction safety culture. It is, therefore, important to seek and understand the barriers and possibilities embedded in safety culture. Normally, people are connected with an organization to diVerent degrees, or to a sub-organizational unit such as a division or department, profession, gender, class, ethnic group, or nation, etc. This depicts cultural overlap within an organizational setting. Several authors (Richter and Koch, 2004, p. 710 with reference to Alvesson, 2002; Guldenmund, 2000, p. 223) suggest culture analysis must be context-speciWc and related to a central issue, which in our case are safety issues. Richter and Koch (2004) demonstrate that organizational culture is the shared understanding within a given organization. Glendon and Stanton (2000) reveal that organizational culture is not owned by any group but, is created by all of the organizations members. A culture could be seen as a repertoire of positively and negatively-loaded meanings (Reiman and Oedewald, 2004, p. 861 with reference to Alvesson, 2002). Culture facilitates shared interpretations of situations and renders coordinated actions and interactions possible and meaningful (Alvesson, 2002). Strong cultural links can counteract questioning and independent thinking; cultural postulations can act as constraints, and prevent people from considering alternative ways of acting (Alvesson, 2002, p. 118). Martin (1992) sees diVerent perspectives of organizational culture as integration, diVerentiation and fragmentation. Integration emphasizes the unity and consistency of cultural assumptions; while the diVerentiation perspective describes cultural manifestations as sometimes inconsistent consensus occurs only within the boundaries of subcultures, which often conXict with each other (Martin, 1992, p. 12 cited in Reiman and Oedewald, 2004). The fragmentation perspective focuses on the ambiguity, as the essence of culture emphasizes the multiplicity of interpretations that do not coalesce into a stable consensus (Martin, 1992 cited in Reiman and Oedewald, 2004). Therefore, the perspective from which the culture in question is deliberated inXuences which aspects of an organization are considered important in the cultural assessment. Owing to this, Reiman and Oedewald (2004) claim organizational culture refers to values, norms and underlying assumptions forming over time during the company history and aVecting all the companys activities and are in turn aVected by them.

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Williams et al. (1989) portray the notion that organizational culture reXects shared behaviors, beliefs, attitudes and values. They argue that beliefs, attitudes and values about the organization, its function or purpose can vary from division to division, department to department, workgroup to workgroup, and from individual to individual. This notion is in line with the concept that organizations are dynamic, multi-faceted human systems that operate in dynamic environments in which, what exactly suits at one time and one place cannot be generalized into a detailed universal truth (Dawson, 1996, p. 162, cited in Cooper, 2000). Pidgeon and OLeary (2000) remind us that events such as Chernobyl, the Challenger and Bhopal have highlighted the fact that in seeking the causes of many modern large-scale accidents, we must now consider that understanding the interaction between technology and organizational failings is a key. Pidgeon (1998) argues that subcultures actually serve a useful purpose, as they provide a diversity of perspectives and interpretation of emerging problems in safety. 3. Safety culture The concept of safety culture is often presented separately from an organizations other characteristics, such as the work schedule, technology, business strategy and Wnancial decision-making (Reiman and Oedewald, 2004). Reiman and Oedewald (2004) reveal that this conceptual separation of safety culture reduces the term to refer only to factors that are clearly connected with safety, such as safety attitudes and safety values. Although it has been widely used for many years, the concept of safety culture is not precisely clear. In order to better understand safety culture, a number of past studies have been examined. Table 1 lists the summary of safety culture research undertaken since 1998. It is thought that the twenty-seven (27) studies selected for the critical review constitute a true representation of the concept. The Chernobyl accident in April 1986 provided evidence of technological vulnerability, and emphasized the need to better understand organizational safety. The term safety culture was Wrst introduced in INSAGs Summary Report on the Post-Accident Review Meeting on the Chernobyl Accident, published by the IAEA as Safety Series No. 75-INSAG-1 in 1986, and was further expanded on in Basic Safety Principles for Nuclear Power Plants, Safety Series No. 75-INSAG-3, issued in 1988 (IAEA, 1991). Although INSAG-1 has borrowed the term culture from anthropologists (Sorensen, 2002), nevertheless, the INSAG publications make no reference to the bodies of literature in any other Weld. The fact is that the concept of safety culture has not developed theoretically from the organizational culture. INSAG-3 (1988) explains that the phrase safety culture refers to a very general matter, the personal dedication and accountability of all individuals engaged in any activity which has a bearing on the safety of nuclear power plants. However, the meaning of the term was left open to interpretation, with guidance lacking on how safety culture could be assessed. Numerous deWnitions of safety culture exist in the academic literature, and examples of selected deWnitions are shown in Table 2. Only eight (8) of the twenty-seven (27) selected studies deWne safety culture; most of the deWnitions are relatively similar in the beliefs perspective, with each focusing, to varying degrees, on the way people think and/or behave in relation to safety. These deWnitions tend to reXect the view that safety culture is something an organization is rather than something an organization has. The deWnitions (see Table 2) adopted by Hale (2000) and Cooper (2000) are the most practical, as they explicitly outline the contents of safety culture.

R.M. Choudhry et al. / Safety Science 45 (2007) 9931012 Table 1 List and summary of prior safety culture research Reference Thompson et al. (1998) Summary of Research

997

Kennedy and Kirwan (1998)

HSE (1999)

Hale (2000) Pidgeon and OLeary (2000)

Rundmo (2000)

Lee and Harrison (2000)

Neal et al. (2000)

Cox and Cheyne (2000)

Grote and Kunzler (2000) McDonald et al. (2000)

Glendon and Stanton (2000)

Guldenmund (2000)

Clarke (2000) Cooper (2000) Glendon and Litherland (2001)

Presents a model that links management support, organizational climate, and self-reported safety outcomes such as safety condition/safety compliance Focuses on aspects of safety management practices called the Safety Culture Hazard and Operability (SCHAZOP), and provides a qualitative analytical approach to identify detailed vulnerabilities and the means for their prevention Produces and utilizes a Health and Safety Climate Survey Tool that helps establishing what employees think of their organizations health and safety issues, and provides a basis on which to improve health and safety, involving employees in the process Elaborates on the complex aspects of safety culture, and suggests the elements of a good safety culture Refers to the pioneering work of Barry Turner whose book Man-made Disasters (Turner, 1978) was one of the Wrst to draw attention to the organization processes needed for learning from past incidents and mistakes, in order to achieve a good safety culture Presents mental images of risk and the results of a survey addressing issues such as safety climate, employee attitudes, risk perception and behavior among employees within an industrial company Norsk Hydro. The presented model links safety climate factors to actions related to the control of risk Addresses attitudes, perceptions and reported behaviors. It provides reliable measurement scales and examines the issues of culture diVerence, not only between organizations as well as sub-populations within a single organization Presents a model that links organizational climate to safety climate. The model demonstrates that organizational climate predicts safety climate, which in turn is related to safety performance Describes the development of two elements of a toolkit, which combines audits with questionnaires assessing employees perceptions and attitudes Presents a socio-technical model of safety culture and then shows that attitudes and perception surveys produce parallel results to auditing Explores the relationships of diVerent aspects of safety culture and safety management systems and presents a revised model of safety management systems Presents the useful distinction between strategic topdown, functionalist perspective and data-driven bottom-up, interpretive approaches to safety culture Postulate safety as the central object of organizational culture and presents an excellent review of 15 studies indicating the complexity of the safety climate concept ClariWes the term safety culture, and proposes a theoretical model by which safety culture aVects safety behaviors in organizations Presents a reciprocal model of safety culture to understand its dynamic, multi-faceted and holistic nature Presents the factor structure of safety climate and develops a behavioral observation measure of safety performance. However, it fails to Wnd any relationship between safety climate and the behavioral observation measure of safety performance (continued on next page)

998 Table 1 (continued) Reference Mearns et al. (2001)

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Summary of Research Reveals benchmarking strategies for monitoring safety climate and presents the relative weaknesses and strengths of organizations safety-climate proWles in a readily accessible format Presents a model identifying the linkages between safety climate, safety knowledge, safety motivation, and safety behavior demonstrating that knowledge and motivation mediate the relationship between safety climate and self-reported safety compliance and participation IdentiWes safety culture as a critical factor that sets the tone for the importance of safety within an organization Presents a model where safe work behaviors are consequences of existing safety climate in construction site environments Presents two models i.e. modiWed behavior model and model of safety performance Promotes adopting the balanced scorecard tool to benchmark organizational culture in construction and argues that selecting and evaluating measures in four perspectives: management, operational, customer, and learning, would enable organizations to pursue incremental safety performance improvements Tests the reliability and validity of a the OSCI (organization and safety climate inventory) questionnaire to address the characteristics of both organizational climate and safety climate within 15 industrial organizations Discusses perspective of integration, diVerentiation and ambiguity in safety culture Presents a survey methodology for studying organizational culture in complex socio-technical systems Determines the relationship between the measurements of the safety climate and safety behavior IdentiWes the dimensions of safety climate to improve the safety culture in construction

Neal and GriYn (2002)

OToole (2002) Mohamed (2002) Maloney and Smith (2003) Mohamed (2003)

Silva et al. (2004)

Richter and Koch (2004) Reiman and Oedewald (2004) Cooper and Phillips (2004) Fang et al. (2006)

Pioneer studies such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA, 1991) publication Safety Culture: A report by the International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group (INSAG4) develops the concept of safety culture in detail. It deWnes safety culture 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 signiWcance. This deWnition highlights two major points: (1) while safety culture is about good safety attitudes, it is also about good safety management established by organizations; (2) good safety culture means assigning the highest priority to safety. The report then explains that safety culture as it relation to both the organization and individuals is attitudinal as well as structural, and concerns the requirements to match all safety issues with appropriate perceptions and actions. The report (INSAG-4) concludes that safety culture is now a commonly-used term and that it is important to give practical value to the concept. An appendix containing 143 questions is included in the report, which increases its worth if safety culture is to be judged in a particular situation. The report presents the concept of safety culture as it relates to both organization and individuals; however, it provides no link between safety culture and measures of safety performance. Lee and Harrison (2000) reveal that basically, any safety management system is a social system, wholly reliant upon the employees who operate it. Its success depends on three

R.M. Choudhry et al. / Safety Science 45 (2007) 9931012 Table 2 Source of safety culture deWnitions Reference Kennedy and Kirwan (1998) DeWnition of safety culture An abstract concept, which is underpinned by the amalgamation of individual and group perceptions, thought processes, feelings and behaviors, which in turn gives rise to the particular way of doing things in the organization. It is a sub-element of the overall organizational culture Refers to the attitudes, beliefs and perceptions shared by natural groups as deWning norms and values, which determine how they act and react in relation to risks and risk control systems Comprises attitudes, behaviors, norms and values, personal responsibilities as well as human resources features such as training and development Those aspects of the organizational culture which will impact on attitudes and behavior related to increasing or decreasing risk Culture is the product of multiple goal-directed interactions between people (psychological), jobs (behavioral) and the organization (situational); while safety culture is that observable degree of eVort by which all organizational members directs their attention and actions toward improving safety on a daily basis A sub-facet of organizational culture, which aVects workers attitudes and behavior in relation to an organizations on-going safety performance Shared and learned meanings, experiences and interpretations of work and safety - expressed partially symbolically which guide peoples actions towards risk, accidents and prevention A set of prevailing indicators, beliefs and values that the organization owns in safety

999

Hale (2000)

Glendon and Stanton (2000) Guldenmund (2000) Cooper (2000)

Mohamed (2003) Richter and Koch (2004)

Fang et al. (2006)

things: its scope; whether employees have knowledge about it; and whether they are committed to making it work. The concept of safety culture has evolved as a way of formulating and addressing this new focus. In line with this, the Advisory Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installations (ACSNI, 1993) provides the deWnition that 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 proWciency of an organizations health and safety management. A safety culture model outlines the manner in which safety culture is thought to be embedded in the organizations practices and safety management systems. The next section reviews safety culture models. 3.1. Models of safety culture A major shortcoming with most of safety culture models is the lack of their integration into general models of organizational culture. According to Schein (1992), organizational culture is understood to be deeply rooted assumptions about human nature, human activities and social relationships shared by members of an organization and their expression in values, behavioral patterns, and artifacts found within the organization. Occasionally, the safety culture models imply safety can be looked upon, and promoted, as something detached from the make-up of the socio-technical systems. Accordingly, Grote and Kunzler (2000) present a socio-technical model of safety culture that links the safety management system and safety culture to the general organizational structure. However, the model is schematic and lacks the means to objectively assess safety culture.

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Geller (1994) put forward a model that has distinguished three dynamic and interactive factors: person; behavior; and environment. He presented 10 principles that form the foundation for a total safety culture. These 10 principles for achieving a total safety culture within the workplace include: employee driven safety rules and procedures; a behaviorbased approach; a focus on safety processes not outcomes; a view of behavior being directed by activators and motivated by consequences; focus on achieving success, not on avoiding failure; observation and feedback on work practices; eVective feedback through behavior-based coaching; observation and coaching as key activities; the importance of self-esteem, belonging and empowerment and safety as a priority rather than a value. Three years later, Geller (1997) proposed a Total Safety Culture model that includes the safety triad and recognizes the dynamic and interactive relationship between person, environment and behavior. Again, he advocates the 10 principles or values that form the basis of a total safety culture. The model presented by Cooper (2000) recognizes the presence of an interactive or reciprocal relationship between psychological, situational and behavioral factors of safety culture. Cooper argues that organizational culture is the product of multiple goal-directed interactions between people (psychological); jobs (behavioral); and the organization (situational). People can neither be deterministically controlled through their environment nor entirely self-determining, but they and their environments inXuence one another in a perpetual dynamic interplay (Davies and Powell, 1992). Cooper (2000) reveals a reciprocal safety culture model in which attitudes and perceptions can be assessed through safety climate questionnaires; actual safety-related behaviors can be assessed by checklists developed as part of behavioral safety initiatives; and the situational features can be assessed through safety management systems audits/inspections. This reciprocal framework has the potential to quantify safety culture as the relevant components can be measured independently or in combination. Gellers (1997) model is similar to Coopers reciprocal model, with the only diVerence being that the term environment is used rather than situation. According to Maloney and Smith (2003), the reciprocal inXuences neither operate simultaneously nor are necessarily of equal strength. There is a process of action and reaction or one of perpetual dynamic interplay (Cooper, 2000). As result, the relationship between safety culture, safety climate, and safety performance was examined (Glendon and Litherland, 2001; Neal et al., 2000). The foci of the models are on behavior compliance and participation. Everyone within the organization has the choice to comply or not to comply, to participate or not to participate. Nevertheless, understanding the psychological factors on the job site and safety performance could facilitate the development of strategies for learning, job redesign and training that would reduce aspects of the job that create job stress, which in turn will improve safety behavior. In summary, more research is needed to distinguish an overall satisfying model of safety culture. 3.2. Measuring safety culture Traditionally, organizational culture is measured through the application of qualitative methods, such as observations and interviews. Nevertheless, the three main dimensions (psychological, situational and behavioral) can be measured through a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods (Cooper, 2000). The situational aspects of safety culture can be seen in the structure of the organization; policies, working procedures, manage-

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ment systems, etc. The behavioral aspects of safety culture can be measured through peer observations, self-reporting and outcome measures. The identiWed safe behaviors are placed on observational checklists, and trained observers regularly take observations which are then translated into percentage of safe scores to provide feedback to those being observed. The psychological dimension is most commonly examined by safety climate questionnaires devised to measure peoples perceptions of safety. Accident prevention is always being inXuenced by the positive safety culture. Kennedy and Kirwan (1998) have developed the Safety Culture and Operability (SCHAZOP) approach that focuses on the many aspects of safety management practices. It deals with day-to-day activities, including safety management, real roles and the personnel fulWlling these roles. One drawback of the SCHAZOP approach is that it is very resource intensive (Kennedy and Kirwan, 1998). It is virtually accepted that a holistic approach is important when dealing with safety culture measurements; however, many safety culture issues are diYcult for an external auditor or audit group to fully understand and rectify due to their complex socio-technical nature. Thompson et al. (1998) found that while managers inXuence safe behaviors through communication of what is brought to their attention, supervisors do so through how fairly they interact with workers. Cox and Cheyne (2000) incorporated behavioral indicators in their Safety Assessment Toolkit along with climate questionnaire and semi-structured interview schedule. Cox et al. (2004) conclude that behavioral safety is eVective in increasing employees conWdence to challenge unsafe practices, as well as highlighting examples of best practice. Behavioral safety process (BSP) supports cultural realignment towards a safety Wrst culture. They indicate that the BSP is an eVective motivational tool that assists in both individual behavior and attitude change. Although measurement of safety culture depends on how it is deWned (which in turn reXects the adopted perspective), ethnographic approaches are often costly and time consuming. Additionally, they tend to produce discovery data rather than hard data that can be incorporated into a management action plan. Glendon and Stanton (2000) demonstrate that a triangulated methodology would be appropriate for use with safety culture measurements. A triangulated method allows for a multi-level analysis of safety culture by conducting interviews, surveys, audits and document analysis, etc. 3.2.1. Construction safety Safety culture is becoming critically important to the safety of employees within the construction site environment (Choudhry et al., submitted for publication). Johnson et al. (1998) found that workers risk-taking behavior is a signiWcant contributor to accidents, while Fredericks et al. (2002) identiWed injuries occurring to workers who lacked appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE). Lee and Halpin (2003) depict that supervision and training are related to safety performance, while Arboleda and Abraham (2004) demonstrate a distinction between management attitudes and workers behaviors, advocating that, in order to be useful as a means of analyzing and categorizing safety culture, management activities and workers activities should be viewed as separate but related phenomena. On the Wnancial side, a great deal of research has been conducted to develop an economic case for safety within the construction industry. Of course, diVerences are evident, but arguments proceed along the lines that the cost of an accident increased insurance cost, lost productivity, and disruptions, provides an economic incentive to try to prevent incidents (Hinze, 2000). The loss or injury of trained and experienced workers, and resultant

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disruptions to work progress, undeniably represent reduction in construction performance. Nonetheless, diYculties may arise when researchers use diVerent techniques to measure safety performance. Traditional measures of safety performance rely on some form of accident or injury data. Another technique is behavior sampling, which requires one or more trained observers to observe workers on-site to determine whether they are working safely or unsafely. Lingard and Holmes (2001) conclude that the variability of work environments and safety cultures from one construction site to another creates an attitude that individual workers risk tolerance is a controlling factor in safety performance. Glendon and Litherland (2001) used a behavior sampling technique to evaluate the safety performance of each construction crew. The observer counted the safe and unsafe key behaviors, then the percentage of safe behavior was calculated using the formula: percentage of safe behavior D total safe/(total safe + total unsafe) 100. Nonetheless, this research did not establish any relationship between safety climate and safety behavior. In summary, the variety of safety performance measures, brieXy listed above, is a healthy indicator of how research in safety is rapidly progressing towards the development of a more meaningful assessment of safety performance. Although, the concept of safety culture is relatively new within the construction industry; it is gaining popularity due to its ability to embrace all perceptional, psychological, behavioral and managerial factors (Choudhry et al., submitted for publication). 4. Discussion and implication Unitary organizational cultures evolve when all members of an organization face roughly the same problems, when everyone communicates with almost everyone else, and when each member adopts a common set of understandings for enacting proper and consensually approved behavior (Van Maanen et al., 1985, p. 37, cited in Hale, 2004); even leaving aside issues of power and interest. These conditions rarely exist within contemporary organizations, which are in line with the lack of consensus associated with the concept of safety culture (Guldenmund, 2000). It is important to know how one deWnes the concept of culture and cultural unit to be investigated. The deWnition of culture must be what can be labeled as integrative if it is to be of any use to organizations. Any organizational unit, whole company, division, or whatever unit one chooses to focus on, must be thought of as integrated. It can be a single cultural unit, or can consist of many cultural units, some of which may conXict with each other, and hence the organization can be thought of as diVerentiated, (not the culture). It may comprise units that have not developed a culture because of interpersonal conXicts or frequent changes in membership, leading one to view the cultural issues within that unit as being ambiguous (Schein, 2004 cited in Hale, 2004). This situation can be found in new start-up, in mergers and acquisition situations, or within organizations that have openly avoided trying to reach consensus on certain values. Culture means consensus on dimensions expressed (civilization, tradition, customs, ethnicity) as behavioral norms, rules, way of thinking, language, etc; but if there is no consensus on key issues of language, thought, etc. there is no culture. However, it is possible for a group to have either a weak or strong culture, or conXict between sub-cultures. Perspectives such as integration, diVerentiation and ambiguity (Richter and Koch, 2004) of cultural characteristics are highly relevant to organizational structural analysis within a particular organization, but these are perhaps,

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after all, perspectives, as opposed to formal deWnitions (Schein, 2004). According to Schein (1996), the culture of an organization can be observed to consist of three elements: The assumptions that are the essence of the culture; The espoused values that often reXect what a group wishes ideally to be and the way it wants to present itself to the public; and The day-to-day behaviors that represent a complex compromise among the espoused values, deeper assumptions, and the immediate requirements of the situation. Schein (1996) observed that an organizations culture actually consists of several sub-cultures including executive culture, engineer culture and operators culture. Each sub-culture possesses the cultural elements described above and inXuences the culture emerging from the interaction of the sub-cultures within an organization. Despite reservations from some investigators (Guldenmund, 2000), safety culture has acquired a place in literature. Though deWnitions vary, there is a consensus of safety culture being a proactive stance towards safety. This is now almost universally accepted, if not always practiced (Lee and Harrison, 2000). 4.1. Safety culture Is safety culture an entity or an aspect? Most widely-quoted publications including (IAEA, 1991; ACSNI, 1993) treat it as an entity. The view taken by Guldenmund (2000) is that instead of safety culture, organizational culture may be considered as the central theme, and researchers should focus on how to measure it. In this case, the research is restricted to (organizational) cultural inXuences on safety culture (Hale, 2000). Nonetheless, it is diYcult to reverse research into safety culture. Researchers tend to use safety culture, safety climate and perhaps safety management interchangeably, as the terms are not so clear cut. Kennedy and Kirwan (1998) reveal that safety management is regarded as the documented and formalized system (policy, procedures, training, instructions and resources, etc) of controlling against risk or harm. Nevertheless, the standard of an organizations safety management system as it exists on paper does not necessarily reXect the way it is carried out in practice. This is where the concept of safety culture comes into the picture. It is the safety culture of the organization that will inXuence the deployment and eVectiveness of the safety management resources, policies, practices and procedures as they represent the work environment and underlying perceptions, attitudes, and habitual practices of employees at all levels (Kennedy and Kirwan, 1998). The authors consider a safety culture of an organization to be one in which safety is regarded by everyone as being an issue that concerns everyone. As a result, safety rules should be understood and adhered to; all incidents must be reported and investigated quickly for actions to be taken, and for increased learning. 4.2. Level of aggregation Coming to the issue of level of aggregation, which measurements should be taken into account in quantifying safety culture? The most suitable reference is Zohar (2000), which argued that conditions determining the appropriate level of analysis require within-group

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homogeneity and between-groups variance. According to Cooper and Phillips (2004), organizations departments are the appropriate level of analysis and aggregation of individual response. Researchers need to pay attention to whether the selected group or organizational level truly represents a natural group having a relatively homogenous culture. They may not stress developing a single common safety culture within an organization/ corporation, perhaps concentrating instead on several good cultures (of workgroups) based upon diVerent sub-cultures to complement each other. Therefore, to make a transparent link between organizational culture and safety culture, each aggregation should have reasons for being viewed as a group. Although research on safety culture is progressing, the pressing issue today is to develop a favorable safety culture within any organization (including companies working in construction) for improving safety performance. 4.3. Positive safety culture Developing and maintaining a positive safety culture can be an eVective tool for improving safety within any organization (Vecchio-Sudus and GriYths, 2004). The challenge is how to develop a culture that is favorable to good safety performance. Hale (2000) has listed a number of elements for a good safety culture, these include importance to safety; involvement of workers at all levels; role of safety staV; the caring trust (that all parties to have a watchful eye and helping hand to cope with inevitable slips and blunders); openness in communication; belief in safety improvements; and integration of safety into the organization. To develop and further promote a positive safety culture, a review from Vecchio-Sudus and GriYths (2004) is given below: Changing attitudes and behaviors: Safe behaviors can be enhanced by capitalizing on activities such as verbal instructions, training, and warning signs. Nevertheless, if things are communicated in the way that the work is easier, and the task can be Wnished earlier and thus rewarded with monetary incentive, then certainly employees will be cutting corners, may not be observing safety rules, not wearing personal protective equipment, and ultimately not working safely. Long-term values include employees being able to work without injury so they can continue to provide earning for both the company and for her/his family. Management commitment: Management plays a key role in promoting a positive safety culture. This can be best demonstrated by allocating resources, time, walk the talk, inspections, by participating in risk assessments and consultative committee meetings, and by completing actions. Employee involvement: For a positive safety culture, employees involvement, ownership and commitment is necessary; in particular empowerment promotes feelings of selfworth, belonging and value. Employees should be involved in training, consultation about noise, machinery isolation, sound barriers, job rotation, PPE, and wearing diVerent earmuVs. Promotional strategies: In order to enhance safety awareness amongst employees, promotional strategies to be used should include the following: (i) Mission statements, slogans and logos; (ii) Publish materials (library, statistics, newsletters); (iii) Media (posters, displays, audiovisual, e-mail, Internet).

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Training and Seminars: Training activities should include short talks, group meetings, training for personal Wtness, hygiene, workplace stress and responsibilities towards safety (including compliance with rules and regulations, hazard identiWcation and risk assessment, incident investigation and job safety analysis); Special campaigns: This item should include Health and Safety Week, health promotion, safety inductions, emergency response, incident reporting and investigation, risk assessment, introduction to existing health, safety and environment management systems. Promoting management commitment and employees participation in safety can enhance the organizations safety culture. When employees become more aware of their responsibilities for incident and injury prevention, they will exhibit more interest in maintaining a safe and healthy work site. The authors of this article take the view that a positive safety culture comprises Wve components which include: management commitment to safety; management concerns for the workforce; mutual trust and credibility between management and employees; workforce empowerment; and lastly continuous monitoring, corrective action, review of system and continual improvements to reXect the safety at the work site. The authors postulate that within any construction organization, a positive safety culture will ascertain and reXect the eVectiveness of a safety management system in the construction site environments. 4.4. Construction safety culture Safety culture is crucial (Fang et al., 2006) to construction; particularly given the construction industry is notorious for its poor safety records (Mohamed, 2002). The Construction Industry Review Committee (CIRC, 2001) commissioned by the Hong Kong SAR (special administrative region) recommended a number of strategies to construct for excellence, with one of its main strategies noting an urgent need to foster a safety culture within the industry at all levels. The current research is important to look into how the safety culture can be established or measured. The authors view is that part of the managerial commitment to safety involves managing production pressures that employees must not be pressurized into cutting corners and performing unsafe practices. During times of intense production, middle managers may turn a blind eye or indeed, actively encourage the use of short cuts in order to meet deadlines, which will further reinforce unsafe behaviors (Langford et al., 2000). These pressures must be managed eVectively in order to limit the likelihood of workers working unsafely or committing procedural violations. Choudhry (2002) revealed that both management commitment and employee support are critical to the success of the desired change. Langford et al. (2000) found that when employees believe management cares about their personal safety, they are more willing to co-operate to improve safety performance. Sawacha et al. (1999) identiWed that safety committees had an important dimension in safety performance, proposing that organizations with eVective safety committees are more likely to try to improve safety performance than organizations without. Hinze (1997) describes that a safety culture begins at the top, and if it is pure, it will be felt at the level of workers. The workers should have safety so ingrained in them that they think of safe ways to perform all construction activities; moreover, safety must be an integral component of every element of the project. It is not something that can be isolated from the elements of a project, or from the elements of a management strategy,

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but is an inherent element of everything, and must be done on projects as well as within organizations. In summary, general agreement has been reached on the concept of safety culture in construction, and some agreement on its attributes. Employees and the industries might beneWt greatly if consensus could be developed on its measurable attributes. 4.5. Research challenge Richter and Koch (2004) Wnd that culture is not frozen, but that safety culture is continually being created and recreated in confrontation with social reality, as people interact with cultures of internal and external factors. They conclude that safety culture should be understood within a speciWc context, and that it may change as the material conditions and social relations develop. Most investigators (Thompson et al., 1998; Sawacha et al., 1999; Flin et al., 2000; Sorensen, 2002) appear to agree that the elements of safety culture include senior managements commitment to safety, good communications, organizational learning, a working environment that rewards identifying safety issues, and participative management leadership style. In construction, the safety culture is considered the dynamic combinations of management attitudes and activities, worker behavioral peer interaction, and the physical environment of the site. Safety culture is always concerned with the determinants of the ability to manage safety and hence is a topdown organizational attribute approach (Mohamed, 2003). Accident rate, compensation costs and related data are poor measures of safety performance, mainly because such data ignore the inherent risk within a construction site, and can be under-reported by some organizations and over-reported by others. Additionally, these data are not sensitive, as any safety changes take time to emerge in the data. Many authors (for example, StrickoV, 2000; Mohamed, 2002; Cooper and Phillips, 2004) advocate the use of proactive measures including safety culture and observed percent safe behavior that focuses on current safety activities to ascertain system success rather than system failure. Research indicates that the measurement of safety performance has been notoriously problematic, and can perhaps be categorized into the two approaches described below. Reactive, Downstream or Lagging Indicators: In recent years there has been a movement away from safety measures based on retrospective data or lagging indicators such as accident rates and compensation costs. Because these traditional approaches measure historical events of safety, the terms reactive, downstream or lagging indicators are used in construction (Mohamed, 2002; Hinze, 2005). Accident costs tend to be reactive or after the event and relatively infrequent. This focus on safety results (Cohen, 2002) often means the success of safety is measured by levels of system failure. Proactive, Upstream or Leading Indicators: Many modern approaches advocate a shift to using proactive measures, upstream or leading indicators, such as measurement of safety climate (Flin et al., 2000; Mohamed, 2002); safety culture (Cooper, 2000; Choudhry and Fang, 2005); hazard identiWcation and/or observed percent safe behavior (StrickoV, 2000; Cooper and Phillips, 2004). These approaches rely and focus on current safety activities to establish the success of the safety management system rather than system failure. In combination, both proactive and reactive approaches can help organizations to ascertain the eVects of their safety programs (Cooper and Phillips, 2004). A consensus view is that a multi-instruments approach should be adopted as a tool for establishing and measuring safety culture. Based on the Cooper (2000) safety culture model, the authors have

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developed a conceptual model of construction safety culture (for details see Choudhry et al., submitted for publication) which is reproduced in Fig. 1. The model oVers an integrative
Improved safety climate Increase safety compliance Increase safety participation

Increase safety knowledge Increase safety motivation Internal Psychological Factors

PERSON Safety Climate: Perceptual Audit

ENVIRONMENT/SITUATION Safety Management System: Objective Audit

CONTEXT

External Observable Factors

Site safety plan

BEHAVIOR Safety Behavior: Behavioral Sampling

Weekly inspect site for hazard and risk

Revise safety plan

Access cultural readiness Improved safety culture, Increased effectiveness of the SMS, Increase in safe behaviors, Reduction in incident rates

Hold safety meeting and allocate corrective work

Hold weekly toolbox talk Hold regulr task audits

Gain management & workforce support & ownership

Prepare behavioral checklists

Analyze errors as to cause repition and responsibility

Conduct observation & establish baseline scores

Develop avoidance strategies & design feedback

Provide feedback and set goals

Modify environment, equipment or system Implement feedback and training

Monitor performance and review checklists

Fig. 1. Model of construction safety culture.

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framework and can apply to construction projects to maintain and improve construction site safety. The model reveals that unsafe conditions can be traced through the site safety implementation, and can be rectiWed. Employees behaviors can be measured by percent safe behaviors through the BBS (behavior-based safety) programs. Safety management systems can be measured by project and site safety audits, while employees perceptions can be measured through safety climate surveys. Using this model, it is possible to measure safety culture within construction site environments. The key features of the model include that: (1) it integrates three related concepts namely safety climate, behavior-based safety, and safety system, thus allowing diVerent dimensions of construction safety culture to be measured individually or in combination; (2) it does not rely on a single type of measurement tool. In contrast, it accommodates a variety of tools including surveys, audits, focus groups, document analysis, etc; (3) the environment/situation construct is concerned not only with the situational aspects of the organization, but also with the speciWc conditions of the project; (4) the three constructs complement each other in a way that oVers a triangulated method of measurement, thus allowing for a multi-level analysis of construction safety culture. In summary, construction safety culture could be deWned as: the product of individual and group behaviors, attitudes, norms and values, perceptions and thoughts that determine the commitment to, and style and proWciency of, an organizations system and how its personnel act and react in terms of the companys on-going safety performance within construction site environments (Choudhry et al., submitted for publication). This comprehensive deWnition relates safety culture to personal and workgroup behaviors, attitudes and thoughts, as well as to safety performance throughout the organizations safety management system. It also relates safety to commitment, management style and ability to act and react to safety concerns. In this deWnition, behaviors can be measured by percent safe behaviors through the behavior-based safety (BBS) program. A safety management system can be measured by safety audits, while employees perceptions can be measured by safety climate questionnaires. By this model, each component of the safety culture can be measured directly or in combination, and it would then be possible to assess the safety culture at any workplace. Cooper (2000) adds that investigating safety culture through a safety climate measure had a propensity to focus solely on the way people perceive rather than representing various aspects of safety culture that have a tendency to be overlooked, such as behavior of employees, site situation or safety environment. The research challenge is to establish and measure safety culture of organizations. Therefore, after more than two decades of research in the Weld, researchers remain at the starting point with a long way to go before measurement of safety can truly begin to progress in a meaningful way to the beneWts of its major stakeholders, including employees, workers and concerned industries. In future, it appears that reciprocal interactions between psychological, behavioral and environmental/situational variables would be the unit of study in relation to safety culture. It appears useful to examine the degree to which safety management systems actually inXuence peoples behaviors and vice-versa. Investigations could also be undertaken into whether peoples commitment to safety determines the existing safety culture, or whether safety culture actually persuades people to become committed to safety. In order to explain the process of reciprocal interaction between safety climate, safety management systems and safety-related behaviors, it is appropriate to analyze the extent to which one element is conditional on the other two within the given contexts.

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5. Conclusion This paper reviews the existing literature on safety culture and provides essential clariWcation in terms of deWnitions, models, level of aggregation, positive safety culture, construction safety culture and safety performance by providing appropriate empirical evidence and theoretical development. From this article, the following conclusions may be summarized: Many organizations, including construction companies around the world, are showing increasing interest in the concept of safety culture as a means of reducing the potential for disasters, accidents, incidents or near misses within their everyday tasks. Organizations Wnd safety culture a critical factor that sets the tone for implementation of safety within their workplaces. The deWnition of safety culture has been clariWed, as safety culture must not be viewed as an alternative to safety climate; safety climate is a product of safety culture, and is dependent on the prevailing safety culture. Researchers investigating safety culture through safety climate measure have a propensity to focus solely on the way people think (their perceptions), and do not represent various aspects of safety culture. Important related issues concerning safety environment, safety management system and peoples safety behavior have a tendency to be overlooked. On the level of aggregation, this study concludes that an organizations department or groups having relatively homogenous culture are the most appropriate level for analysis and aggregation. Each aggregation should have reasons for being viewed as a group, and researchers may not stress developing one common safety culture within a corporation/organization, but concentrate on several good cultures (of workgroups) based upon diVerent sub-cultures that complement each other. Models of safety culture are discussed to demonstrate the dynamic, perpetual, multifaceted and holistic nature of safety culture. Attention is drawn towards the model of construction safety culture to assess, maintain and improve safety culture on construction projects. However, to eliminate injuries, save lives and advance towards zero incidents, researchers must pay more attention to this vital topic i.e. safety culture. This study reveals that safety culture will ascertain and reXect the eVectiveness of a safety management system at any construction site. The study further demonstrates that developing a positive safety culture can be an eVective tool for improving safety on any construction site. Within a positive safety culture, employees not only feel responsible for their own safety, but are responsible for their peers safety, and the organizational culture supports them acting on their responsibility. Within a positive safety culture, the organizations formal management systems and leaders informal management practices facilitate caring by encouraging, recognizing, and reinforcing safe behaviors. The measurement of safety culture is categorized under the proactive approach of safety performance. The authors Wrmly believe that measurement of safety performance is very challenging, and therefore, researchers need to do more for the beneWt of all industries and their employees. Acknowledgements The Wrst author would like to express his appreciation to the Higher Education Commission, Government of Pakistan for granting the PhD scholarship to undertake this

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study. Support from Gammon Construction Limited is also gratefully acknowledged. Finally, the authors acknowledge the constructive criticism of the anonymous reviewers, whose comments have helped us to improve our paper. References
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