Assessing the "Leading Indicators" of Safety Climate within the Shipping Industry

Abstract

Safety climate is generally acknowledged to be an important concept in order to reveal the level of safety within an organization. However, there is a lack of consensus regarding the underlying dimensions of safety climate. Moreover, there is an overall lack of agreement concerning the stability of safety climate dimensions over different industrial sectors. Interview data from 30 employees within a shipping company was compared with the dimensions of a generic safety climate model (SCM) to assess the sensitivity of interviews in capturing safety climate relevant information. Additionally, the safety focus in the company was assessed. About 80% of the descriptive information in the interviews was found to be in accordance with the dimensions identified in the SCM. Among the remaining 20 % residual it was possible to identify four dimensions of relevance to safety, beyond the scope of the SCM. Accordingly, interviews were found to be a sensitive method in capturing theoretically sound information regarding the safety climate concept. The topics reflected upon in the interviews indicated that the safety focus in the company was mature. However, the evaluations connected to these topics indicated a clear tendency to attribute negative and person- focused safety issues at the organizational sharp- end. Methodological, theoretical and practical implications of the results were discussed.