Seeking a scientific and pragmatic approach to safety culture in the North American construction industry

Abstract

Safety culture remains a key concept in occupational safety management. In the North American construction industry, regulators are growing increasingly interested in safety culture as phenomenon, requiring a demonstrable ‘good safety culture’ for a license to operate. However, safety culture is arguably unable to deliver on such ambitions. It remains undefined and the field of safety science that surrounds is fragmented and incoherent, unable to support theory building and the generation of universal knowledge. Although a variety of models and methodologies can be applied in the research of safety culture, they are often vulnerable to a fallacy of logic – they combine component safety parts and claim the whole as culture – or to more fundamental ontological and epistemological limitations around external validity. Considerations of the investments of time, money and resource for such examinations should also be considered. Here, we unpack these ideas further and make the case for increased coherence in ‘safety culture research’, with a focus on both scientific rigor and pragmatic application. We reflect on the theory, discussions and debates made to date with the ambition of illuminating areas of commonality and those of conflict within the safety science academic and practitioner communities. Ultimately, we argue for the elimination of safety culture from the safety science lexicon. Instead, robust research of its various component parts, and their relationships to safety performance, will be better able to support the generation of valid and reliable knowledge that also enhances the development of the field of safety science as a whole.