How can regulatory authorities improve safety in organizations by influencing safety culture? A conceptual model of the relationships and a discussion of implications

Abstract

Regulators have increasingly started to focus on safety culture. The causal link between regulatory initiatives to improve safety culture and a potential decline in accidents may, however, appear like a “black box”, involving social processes that seem hard to foresee and influence. We need a better conceptual understanding of this. The aims of our study are to: 1) Map studies of regulatory efforts to influence safety culture in companies, 2) Use the identified studies to develop a conceptual model of the analytical relationships between regulatory initiatives to improve safety culture and accidents in these studies, including the factors influencing these analytical re-lationships and 3) discuss practical implications. The review is reported according to PRISMA-guidelines, and focuses on professional transport (aviation, sea, rail, road) and the Norwegian petroleum sector. Our review indicates at least six analytical relationships, mediating between regulatory attempts to influence organizational safety culture and accidents. These are between: 1) Rules and regulators, 2) Regulators and companies, 3) Managers and employees in the companies, 4) Organizational members’ shared ways of thinking and acting, which are the two key elements of safety culture, 5) Safety culture and safety behaviour, and between 6) Safety behaviour and accidents. Regulatory attempts to influence safety culture may fail or succeed at each level, through factors involved in the different relationships.