ABSTRACT
If you pick up a book on safety now, in the late 1990s, you will find that a large part of the focus is on how the organization and work system influence safety. As discussed in the first chapter in this part, by Hale and Hovden, this was not always so. The focus on organizational factors and the management of safety is a relatively recent advance in our fight to make workplaces safer. It may now seem obvious that management and work systems play a major role in determining safety. This change in focus only occurred, however, when it was realized that the causes of accidents are not simple nor linear and that true prevention, that is the action needed to stop the accident or injury occurring at all, requires a much broader focus on what goes on in the workplace.
