ABSTRACT
One would suspect that industry hardly needs to be reminded about the costs of failure. Yet this message has formed the basis of a recent official safety campaign in the UK, which notes that the costs of accidents can lead to major losses, perhaps up to 37 per cent of profits (HSE 1990a, 1992b, 1993). Some possible effects of safety failures are, of course, difficult to quantify: reduction of share value, damage to public image, loss of market position and so on. As Kloman (1990) has observed: “…the most important resource of any organisation is its public reputation, and the most serious risk in the marketplace is loss of credibility”.
