Safety Culture in Sea and Aviation Transport

The research presented in this thesis investigates sea and aviation transport safety culture, with a focus on perceptions and attitudes. A safety culture reflects the attitudes, beliefs, perceptions, and values that individuals share in relation to safety. Safety culture is often identified as being essential to an organization's ability to manage safety-related aspects of its operations. The aims of this research are: to assess individual perceptions and judgments of safety culture in practical contexts by using nine aspects of safety culture found in the safety culture literature; to increase knowledge about the safety culture aspects by conducting comparative studies in three transport branches; and to investigate relationships between safety culture aspects and organizational climate dimensions. The approach to safety culture presented in this thesis focuses on good organizational learning and investigates nine aspects: Learning, Reporting, Justness, Flexibility, Communication, Attitudes towards safety, Safety-related behaviours, Risk perception, and Working situation. Studies were conducted in airport ground handling (one site), passenger shipping (six ships), and air traffic control (three sites), where the safety culture was assessed using observations, questionnaire packages, interviews, and collection of facts. In total, 949 subjects completed a questionnaire package containing nine scales, one for each safety culture aspect, and 80 interviews were conducted. Ekvall's organizational climate questionnaire, which focuses in part on an organization's ability for innovation and change, was completed by 719 subjects. The nine scales representing the nine safety culture aspects were found to function well with good reliability in the three transport settings, and may constitute valuable methods for monitoring and improving safety culture in working environments. Obtaining both questionnaire data (the nine scales) and interview data was valuable; the questionnaire package provided comparative data across transport branches and allowed establishment of reference data concerning safety culture aspects in each of the three branches. The interviews provided knowledge and examples of positive and negative expressions of safety culture that the interviewees had experienced. The comparative studies of safety culture aspects were conducted using a multiplex approach of data collection, which provided valuable knowledge about safety culture in practical contexts. The comparisons of average scores for the nine safety culture aspects showed that air traffic control often had somewhat higher average scores than the other two branches, while the ground handling ramp organization generally had the lowest average scores. Compared to employees, managers generally had somewhat more positive perceptions and judgments of safety culture aspects, but the two groups differed very little in their perceptions and judgments of the organizational climate. Managers? expectations and goals concerning safety culture aspects were compared to employees? actual questionnaire scores. Employees? reports of the safety culture aspects were often poorer than both managers? estimations of reality and managers? lower acceptable limits for safety culture aspect scores. Individual characteristics, such as gender, age, and time in company, were found to have very little effect on how the safety culture aspects were perceived and judged. The organizational climate on board three passenger/cargo ships was found to be somewhere in between the normative ?innovative? and the ?stagnating? organization types, and very often closer to the ?stagnating? type. The organizational climate at each of the three air traffic control sites was similar to the climate in ?innovative? organizations. Relationships existed between safety culture aspects and organizational climate dimensions. In passenger shipping, better Challenge/Motivation among personnel and a higher level of Support for ideas were significantly positively related to most safety culture aspects. In air traffic control, a higher level of Support for ideas and a lower level of Conflicts were significantly positively related to many safety culture aspects. The results show that learning processes are better developed in the air traffic control setting than in passenger shipping and airport ground handling ramp activities. Compared to the other two branches, air traffic control can be characterized by a more mature approach to reporting anomalies and by having a more developed procedure for analysing limitations and implementing improvements. Further research in the safety culture field should concentrate on developing methods for assessing the behavioural and situational areas of safety culture; testing the relation of safety culture to safety management and safety behaviour; determining which aspects and items are important for measuring safety culture; and finding indications of what elements influence safety behaviours, and how they exert this influence

A study of the proactive occupational safety and health work in a Swedish construction company - the example of vibration exposure

Exposure to vibrations from tools and machines used in construction work can induce damages to the human body. One of the most frequent symptoms is the hand-arm vibration syndrome commonly known as white fingers. The proportions of the international workforce exposed to vibrations are high and dominating sectors are construction, agriculture, forestry, and transport. Particularly exposed construction occupational groups include machine operators and drivers of vehicles. In 2005, the Swedish Work Environment Authority introduced a new guideline on the topic of preventing vibration exposure risks (AFS 2005:15) based on the European union 2002/44/EC directive on workers’ exposure to vibration. It includes raised demands on estimating vibration exposure, and clearly stated responsibilities and rights of employers and employees. However, in 2011 the Swedish Work Environment Authority’s inspections showed that many employers belonging to sectors such as building and construction, transport, and mining industry did not have any satisfactory proactive risk management work concerning vibration exposure. This paper reports on a pilot study performed in a large Swedish construction company with the aim to yield more knowledge about factors affecting the implementation of the guidelines and to suggest actions for improvement. A total of 31 construction workers and supervisors were interviewed at nine construction sites in southern Sweden. Interview results demonstrated a lack of knowledge in estimating vibration exposure; the incorporation of the Work Environment Authority’s directions had not been accomplished; driving forces for improving the proactive health and safety work and specifically vibration exposure management was weak on all organisational levels; important factors affecting the implementation of vibration exposure regulations are the psychosocial work environment at construction sites as well as company safety culture; a large proportion of the interviewed construction workers was judged to be at risk for developing vibration injuries if the exposure was not decreased; management, supervisory, and production levels need increased knowledge about vibration exposure and vibration injuries; and methods and tools for easy estimation of vibration exposure needs to be developed

Proactive identification of work and situational factors that can affect safety in air traffic control.

In an organization where the safety level is high and incidents and serious accidents are very rare, a steady erosion of safety awareness and protective measures can occur, especially when productive demands rise. Thus, it is important to continuously identify and monitor aspects in the organization that can affect work performance and safety. In an ongoing joint research project between the LFV Group (Swedish state agency that operates airports and is responsible for air navigation services) and Lund University, the aim is to develop a questionnaire-based methodology for identifying and monitoring work and situational factors in Swedish air traffic control centers and towers in order to identify in advance aspects that can affect safety in the organization. This paper presents preliminary findings from interviews conducted to determine the variables for assessing work and situational factors as well as initial findings from a pilot study testing the questionnaire. Results from the interview sessions showed that when evaluating work and situational factors the following aspects should be included: safety culture, commitment, organizational climate, psychosocial work environment, leadership, communication, areas of conflict, and participation/involvement. Results from the pilot study showed that the majority of respondents found the questionnaire items to be of high relevance for finding deficiencies in the organization. Follow-up interviews or group discussions were recommended that would give additional and more detailed information. Preliminary results also revealed issues that could be further developed in the respondents’ work situations. Respondents with administrative tasks indicated communication skills and teamwork as areas for further improvement. Some air traffic controllers wanted more knowledge about aircraft specifications and a few thought it was too complicated to write reports on small deficiencies and incidents and believed this could negatively affect the safety reporting culture

Tool for evaluating organizational emergency management capability.

Crises or emergencies have drawn attention to the need of good emergency management capability in affected organizations or regions. An ongoing subproject in a Swedish multidisciplinary research programme aims at identifying areas or processes that are potentially important to include in the work of developing and improving an organization’s resilience and emergency management capability. This paper presents preliminary findings from interviews conducted to identify such areas or processes and proposes a first version of a methodology that can enable organizations to continuously evaluate and improve their organizational emergency management capability. Interviews were conducted with four representatives from different administrations within a regional public body in Sweden. Preliminary results show that when evaluating organizational emergency management capability, areas or key processes such as the following ought to be included: assessment of existing organizational emergency management capability, risk and vulnerability analysis, competence provision, operational surveillance and alarm functions, operationalization, communication, safety culture and organizational culture, leadership and management, individual and organizational learning. The proposed methodology for self evaluation of capability is based on a maturity model containing five maturity levels, low to high. An organization develops in stages upwards through the levels by building on the strengths and removing the weaknesses from the previous level. Each maturity level is described based on how the organization learns and reacts to new knowledge and experiences. Each area or process is evaluated and described according to the five maturity levels. The self evaluation provides for analyses, discussion and reflection concerning the proactive management activities taking place in an organization

Säkerhetskulturen i sjö- och luftfart

2006 lades avhandlingen Safety culture in sea and Aviation transport fram vid Institutionen för Designvetenskaper vid Lunds tekniska högskola. Avhandlingsarbetet var framför allt en del av det LFV-finansierade HUFA-projektet (Human Factors in Air Navigation Services) vid Lunds universitet, samt en del av ett större sjösäkerhetsprojekt finansierat av bl.a. Sjöfartsverket och VINNOVA. Här följer en sammanfattning av några av resultaten från avhandlingsarbetet

Relationship between safety culture aspects - A work process to enable interpretation

Knowledge about the existing safety culture in a maritime organization such as in shipping companies or on board ships can enable the formulation of effective interventions to maintain and improve safety culture and safety in the organization. When assessing the safety culture, questionnaires developed for this purpose are often used. This paper proposes a work process that facilitates the analysis and interpretation of the relationships between safety culture aspects using questionnaire data. The work process includes the use of variable cluster analysis where the cluster solutions are presented in dendrograms. These were found to be an excellent way to visualize complex relationships in the quantitative data and to facilitate the understanding of the safety culture concept. Results are presented from applying the statistical process to safety culture data from six Swedish ships in international traffic. The visualized safety culture results can enable group discussions about safety on different organizational levels and can constitute an important input to the continuous improvement processes for safety and safety culture