ABSTRACT
Improving system safety in high-hazard, low-risk systems such as nuclear power plants is not only a problem of technology. To an increasing extent it encompasses psycho-organisational inquiries into the social behaviour and social interaction of the operational personnel. Taking into account this trend, the International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group (INSAG, 1986, 1991) introduced the concept of ‘safety culture.’ It was understood
as an assembly of characteristics and attitudes in organisations and individuals, which establishes that, as an overriding priority, nuclear plant safety issues receive the attention warranted by their significance. Wilpert (1991) has argued, however, that the initial INSAG understanding of safety culture restricts the impact area to predominantly cognitive matters. He stresses the need for investigations of the relationships between values, beliefs, and attitudes on the one side, and patterns of behaviour on the other. In a parallel development the Study Group on Human Factors of the Advisory Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installations (ACSNI, 1993) has come to similar conclusions, and has defined the safety culture of an organisation as the product of individual and group values, attitudes, perceptions, competencies, and patterns of behaviour that determine the commitment to, and the style and proficiency of, an organisation’s health and safety management.
