Influence of corporate top management to safety culture : a literature survey

Abstract

Corporate top managers influence safety through their decision-making on budgets and policies, but also through their daily actions and attitudes. These channels of influence are important in forming the safety culture of a company. This is of particular interest in transport, where human errors are an important source of safety hazards and safety culture is closely related to the handling of risk.

The factors influencing safety culture can be distilled from organizational studies, which often are questionnaire surveys. In the surveys, typical recurring factors include positive attitudes to safety, management commitment, supervisor competence and priority of safety over production.

Based on safety literature, the publication discusses methods for assessing safety while presenting relevant questions and statements for shipping industry.

Pekka Räisänen is Primary Lecturer of Naval Architecture at Turku University of Applied Sciences and has been active with risk and safety management in metal and marine industries.