Abstract
Research conducted at the Navy Postgraduate School, over the past 10 years, has focused on key organizational factors that may influence the likelihood of an accident or organizational failure. The concept of “high-reliability-organizations”, originated by Dr. Karlene Roberts and her colleagues at UC Berkeley, California, and was used as a point of departure for understanding how different organizations manage the risk of accidents and other organizational failures. High-reliability organizations are those that are very successful at reducing the risks of operational hazards that typically underlie accidents and organizational disasters, such as the Challenger and Columbia Shuttle accidents. Included in the concept of high-reliability organizations are factors related to the safety culture of the organization. The author and his colleagues at the Naval Postgraduate School and UC Berkeley have developed and validated a web-based safety climate assessment and feedback system now in use in Naval Aviation and in other aviation, aerospace, and medical applications. This paper reviews recent findings in the application of safety climate and culture assessments conducted in naval aviation and US hospitals.
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