Twenty-fourth International Conference on Knowledge, Culture, and Change in Organizations

Abstract

This paper describes a study involving the development of an online method for assessing safety culture maturity (SCM) and a measure of safety culture and leadership styles related to successful safety performance for use with transit agencies. The development of the SCM across five different levels was based on the work of Westrum (1993), the UK HSE (2000), and Filho & Waterson (2018). In this revised model the first stage, Basic, describes a culture characterized as “who cares about safety as long as we are not caught?” to the most advanced stage, Generative, characterized as “health and safety is how we do business around here.” Associations between the newly developed SCM with previously validated measure of safety culture SCAS (Sherry, 2018) are presented. Correlations to existing safety performance data, accidents , injuries and near misses for the transit agency are reported. Previous research using the SCAS has demonstrated significant associations between scores on the measure and safety performance measures. According to several authors, a simultaneous measure of safety climate, safety culture measurement and maturity of the culture of the organization is currently unavailable (Todaro, et. al. , 2023). Moreover, criticism of the safety culture assessment method, focusing on maturity, has recently drawn criticism (Boskeljon‐Horst, et. al., 2022). The present study also describes efforts to address these concerns. A discussion of the managerial and leadership behaviors associated with components of a mature safety culture and positive safety performance metrics are presented.