Management and culture: the third age of safety. A review of approaches to organizational aspects of safety, health and environment

Attention to the management of safety, health and environment is as old as civilization. The Babylonian king Hammurabi incorporated a provision in his code of laws in the second millenium BC ordering the punishment of the mason if the house he built fell down and killed the owner. The punishment might seem excessive now (death of the mason if the owner died and death of his son if the owner’s son died) but the principle that a company is liable for managing its affairs so that it produces a safe product in a safe way is surprisingly modern. This attention to management was, however, largely concerned with government regulation requiring managers to make technical and human resource provisions in the name of safety. It did not go into how the company should manage that provision. Attention to prevention was practical rather than scientific.