This thesis describes original research that examines the extent to which organisational culture, and psychosocial aspects specifically, relate to individuals’ ‘normal’ performance within Australian Defence Force (ADF) aviation. The primary rationale for the research relates to the ‘safety record’ of ADF aviation, whereby more than fifty ‘peace time’ fatalities have occurred in ADF aviation accidents since 1990 and many of these have links to organisational culture attributes. The secondary rationale relates to a more general perspective: previous research identifies human functioning in military aviation – more than any other aviation domain – as being dependent upon psychosocial attributes including interpersonal collaboration, communication and coordination. However, the depth to which such qualities impact the safety of a sociotechnical system remains substantially uncharted.This thesis firstly examines both scientific and Australian military literature on organisational behaviour, culture and human factors. Subsequently, it describes the design and implementation of a new 45-item questionnaire – the Australian Defence Force Aviation Questionnaire (ADFAQ). More than four hundred ADF aircrew and engineers completed the ADFAQ. The data analysis involved quantitative and qualitative consideration of survey responses and comparisons between numerous demographic criteria. Following this, the thesis describes the design and implementation of an interview study that was designed to both cross-examine key ADFAQ results and explore more deeply other issues that were only superficially identified by the (largely psychometric) composition of the ADFAQ.The research results offer three main contributions to scientific knowledge. These relate to: (1) the efficacy of triangulated and contextualised methodology in building an understanding of organisational culture; (2) the nature of the safety culture concept and its relationship with organisational culture; and (3) rank-based homogeneity of attitudes. This research shows that survey methodologies are not a panacea, but they can illuminate the nature of attitudes to safety and provide empirical guidance for other methods to explore more deeply the cultural roots of such attitudes and associated behaviours.
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