ABSTRACT
This paper focuses on how to balance compliance to requirements and safe adaption to situations, related to the workplace in a Norwegian construction company. The research literature on safety management can be divided into two categories: a top down classical, rational approach where rules are seen as static, and a bottom-up approach with a constructivist view of rules as dynamic and local. With these broad categories of theories as a background, this paper discusses how to balance between compliance to requirements and safe adaption to work situations that rapidly and constantly are changing in the construction industry. Safety management approaches and work practises in a Norwegian construction company are applied to discuss this balance.
