Safety Culture and Safety Performance in High-Reliability Organizations: A Synthesis of IDOCAL’S Contributions to the Literature

Abstract

Improving safety culture and safety performance is a constant concern for companies operating in high-risk environments. For almost two decades, IDOCAL (the Research Institute of Personnel Psychology, Organizational Development and Quality of Working Life) has been contributing to advancing our understanding of these important concepts through theoretical development and empirical research. The objective of this article is to synthesize these contributions. Some of the most prominent are (1) the development of a framework for the evaluation of safety culture and its correlates based on the AMIGO model, (2) the establishment of the empowering leadership model as a valuable concept in safety leadership, and (3) the establishment of a three-dimensional safety performance model. In addition, the researchers within IDOCAL have made great progress in understanding the main predictors of safety performance, including empowering leadership and safety culture. Within this paper, IDOCAL’s plans to advance this line of research in the coming years, by extending it from the nuclear power sector to other high-risk industries, are also outlined.

Keywords

• safety culture
• safety performance
• high-reliability organizations