Safety Science 34 (2000) 111±129

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Assessing safety culture in o€shore environments

S.J. Cox, A.J.T. Cheyne *
Centre for Hazard and Risk Management, The Business School, Loughborough University, Leicestershire
LE11 3TU, UK

Abstract
This paper discusses a joint industry and UK Health and Safety Executive research project
on the assessment of safety culture in o€shore environments. It particularly describes the
development of a safety culture assessment methodology which is based on a systems
approach to organisational culture. This approach combines a number of assessment meth-
ods, such as: questionnaires, focus groups, behavioural observations and situational audits, to
describe and explore the ecacy of health and safety management systems. The evidence
produced by these methods are complementary rather than alternatives and provide di€erent
views of organisational health and safety culture by tapping many aspects of the organisa-
tion's structure, function and behaviour. The assessment techniques have been piloted within
collaborating organisations, both within the UK and the Gulf of Mexico. The culmination of
the work is the ``Safety Climate Assessment Toolkit'' which is now published and available
for use by managers and safety professionals within the o€shore oil extraction industry.
# 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Organisational culture; Safety culture; Health and safety management; Cultural assessment;
Safety Climate Assessment Toolkit

1. Introduction

In the decade following the 1988 Piper Alpha disaster many of the o€shore oil and
gas processing organisations within the UK have made changes in the manner in
which they manage health and safety (Alexander et al., 1994; Flin et al., 1996; Cox
and Cheyne, 1999). The majority of these changes were precipitated by developments
in the o€shore health and safety regulatory regime following on from the recom-
mendations of the Cullen Report (Cullen, 1990), including, for example, the estab-
lishment of the O€shore Safety Division of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE)
and the application of the O€shore Installations (Safety Case) Regulations (1992).

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +44-1509-222162; fax: +44-1509-223961.

E-mail address: a.j.t.cheyne@iboro.ac.uk (A.J.T. Cheyne).

0925-7535/00/$ - see front matter # 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
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