Strategies regulatory authorities can use to influence safety culture in organizations: Lessons based on experiences from three sectors

• Published in: Safety science Vol. 118; pp. 409 - 423
• Main Authors: Nævestad, Tor-Olav, Hesjevoll, Ingeborg Storesund, Ranestad, Karen, Antonsen, Stian
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier Ltd 01.10.2019; Elsevier BV
• Subjects: Corporate culture; Industrial safety; Literature reviews; Nuclear engineering; Nuclear safety; Occupational safety; Organizational aspects; Petroleum industry; Regulatory agencies; Safety; Safety management
• ISSN: 0925-7535; 1879-1042
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ssci.2019.05.020

•The relationship between safety culture and safety outcomes is well documented.•Regulators have increasingly included safety culture in their repertory.•Safety culture is, however, a fairly new regulatory concept.•Knowledge is lacking on pros and cons and expected outcomes of strategies.•The study identifies and discusses 5 rule-based and 6 advisory-based strategies. The relationship between safety culture and safety outcomes is well documented across industries and countries, and regulators in different industries have increasingly included safety culture in their repertory. Safety culture is, however, a fairly new regulatory concept, and it seems that knowledge is lacking on pros and cons and expected outcomes of strategies that regulatory authorities can use to improve safety culture. The aims of our study are therefore to: (1) Map descriptions of regulatory efforts to influence safety culture in companies; (2) Identify strategies employed by regulatory authorities to influence safety culture; (3) Describe (regulators’ and companies’) experiences with, and results of the strategies; (4) Discuss pros and cons of the strategies (possibilities and challenges). The paper also provides a more general discussion of whether it is possible to regulate safety culture, and subsequently what it means to regulate safety culture. The paper is based on experiences from three sectors that have introduced safety culture in their regulatory repertory: (1) The Norwegian petroleum industry, (2) North American rail, and (3) The nuclear industry. The experiences are studied in a systematic literature review reported according to PRISMA guidelines. Our discussion indicates that to include safety culture in the regulatory repertory may involve a range of different strategies, e.g. auditing safety culture, introducing new rules, providing information, providing assistance with self-measurements etc. The study identifies and discusses 5 rule-based and 6 advisory-based strategies that regulators may utilize when attempting to influence organizational safety culture.