Establishing a safety culture in a distributed offshore logistics activity

摘要

Most of the research published about safety culture focuses on how safety culture can be described theoretically or measured. This paper suggests concrete actions to improve safety on offshore service vessels. The paper sketches out a method for developing actions in order to improve safety by conceptualising safety culture as an abstract analytical concept for interpretations of complex connections between safety and other conditions. This conceptualization of safety culture is based on a discussion of the use of the term culture in the fields of safety management, organizational theory and cultural anthropology. The use of Action Research as a strategy in developing a safety culture is described. The empirical foundation of this paper is an ongoing project that aims to improve personnel safety on the vessels in the supply services in the Norwegian oil company Statoil. The number of injuries has decreased after the implementation of the project.