Safety Science 34 (2000) 111129

www.elsevier.com/locate/ssci

Assessing safety culture in oshore environments

S.J. Cox, A.J.T. Cheyne *
Centre for Hazard and Risk Management, The Business School, Loughborough University, Leicestershire
LE11 3TU, UK

Abstract
This paper discusses a joint industry and UK Health and Safety Executive research project
on the assessment of safety culture in oshore environments. It particularly describes the
development of a safety culture assessment methodology which is based on a systems
approach to organisational culture. This approach combines a number of assessment methods, such as: questionnaires, focus groups, behavioural observations and situational audits, to
describe and explore the ecacy of health and safety management systems. The evidence
produced by these methods are complementary rather than alternatives and provide dierent
views of organisational health and safety culture by tapping many aspects of the organisation's structure, function and behaviour. The assessment techniques have been piloted within
collaborating organisations, both within the UK and the Gulf of Mexico. The culmination of
the work is the ``Safety Climate Assessment Toolkit'' which is now published and available
for use by managers and safety professionals within the oshore oil extraction industry.
# 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Organisational culture; Safety culture; Health and safety management; Cultural assessment;
Safety Climate Assessment Toolkit

1. Introduction
In the decade following the 1988 Piper Alpha disaster many of the oshore oil and
gas processing organisations within the UK have made changes in the manner in
which they manage health and safety (Alexander et al., 1994; Flin et al., 1996; Cox
and Cheyne, 1999). The majority of these changes were precipitated by developments
in the oshore health and safety regulatory regime following on from the recommendations of the Cullen Report (Cullen, 1990), including, for example, the establishment of the Oshore Safety Division of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE)
and the application of the Oshore Installations (Safety Case) Regulations (1992).
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +44-1509-222162; fax: +44-1509-223961.
E-mail address: a.j.t.cheyne@iboro.ac.uk (A.J.T. Cheyne).
0925-7535/00/$ - see front matter # 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S0925-7535(00)00009-6

112

S.J. Cox, A.J.T. Cheyne / Safety Science 34 (2000) 111129

In the wake of such changes, a Cross Industry Safety Leadership Forum has been
established to facilitate the sharing of safe working practices. The members of this
forum recently highlighted a number of indicators of improved safety performance
(Cross Industry Safety Leadership Forum, 1997), including an overall decrease in
reported injury frequency rates and an estimated $5 billion in investments in health
and safety-related improvements. However, despite these overall eorts, there is
some evidence to suggest that the rate of improvement, as measured by accident/
injury frequency, has slowed down over the past 2 years (HSE, 1997; Cox and
Cheyne, 1999). Furthermore the Cross Industry Safety Leadership Forum (1997)
have also conrmed that much of the existing eorts in support of these improvements have been focused upon technology and management systems rather than
human factors. They also suggest that potential for future improvements may best
be realised through enhanced eorts in the areas of human factors and through the
associated developments in health and safety culture. In light of this initiative this
paper considers how oshore installation managers can gauge their safety culture.
Discussion here focuses on the development of a generic safety culture assessment
methodology which was designed to support improvements in safety performance
across the sector.
This paper describes a series of studies that are focused on the practical needs of
oshore managers and workers for the monitoring of safety culture through the
development of a self-assessment tool. It aims to give a broad overview of the
development of this methodology (Cox and Cheyne, 1999) and draws heavily upon
recent work carried out in the UK sector of the North Sea. It also explores the
practical utility of the concept in oshore environments. The methods described
here are concerned with both the development and piloting of this tool. Whereas the
methodology is based on sound safety science, the overall aim of the assessment
process is to chart a path through, what is increasingly becoming, a conceptual
mineeld (Cox and Flin, 1998), and one in which researchers have been challenged
by industry to address practical issues (Cox and Lacey, 1998). Although much has
been done in other sectors (e.g. Hale and Hovden, 1998; Hofmann and Stetzer,
1998) in these studies the cultural context for investigation is set within the oshore
industry.
1.1. Previous studies
A number of previous studies in oshore environments have, either directly or
indirectly, considered employee perceptions and elements of health and safety culture. In an early study, Marek et al. (1985) examined risk perceptions, stress and
accidents among dierent work groups on an oshore installation. They identied
the main inuences on safety as the implementation of a safety policy, `correct'
safety management and safety promoting activities, and incorporation of employees'
views in designing safety programmes. Similarly Rundmo (1993) implemented a
questionnaire survey of personnel on eight oshore installations in the Norwegian
sector of the North Sea; rstly to determine the personnel evaluations of risk
resources and, secondly, to identify dierences in risk perceptions among dierent

S.J. Cox, A.J.T. Cheyne / Safety Science 34 (2000) 111129

113

work groups. These studies indicated that those personnel who were most prone to
injuries and near misses were also those who experienced the greatest physical strain
and who perceived the highest risks in relation to their work situation (Rundmo,
1993). Flin and Mearns (1994) carried this work forward into the UK sector of the
North Sea. They identied three important areas which could contribute to accidents and near misses: (1) individual characteristics (including experience, knowledge, attitudes to safety, etc); (2) job characteristics (work tasks, environment, job
stress, etc.); and (3) platform characteristics (safety culture, social support and safety
management systems). This study (Flin and Mearns, 1994) also indicated that management commitment to safety, job satisfaction, attitudes to safety versus production and job situation had the greatest eect on workers' perception of risk and their
satisfaction with safety measures.
In a study focussing specically on safety culture, Alexander et al. (1994) used selfadministered questionnaires and supporting interviews in an attempt to measure
aspects of safety culture in the oshore environment within one operating company
in the UK sector of the North Sea. The study also focussed on dierences in perceptions of the prevailing culture between company employees and contractors and
those working in onshore and oshore environments. The culture for safety within
the operating company was described, in terms of employees' attitudes and perceptions, by six factors, labelled as management commitment, personal need for safety,
appreciation of risk, attribution of blame, conict and control and supportive
environment. Contractor employees were found to have a higher appreciation of
risk and a higher personal need for safety compared with the operating company
employees. Similarly, oshore workers in general had a higher appreciation of risk,
greater personal need for safety and were more convinced of management's commitment to safety than those working onshore. Mearns et al. (1998) have continued
this focus on human and organisational issues in their study of safety climate in the
UK sector of the North Sea. Their study, based on a questionnaire survey of
employee attitudes, provided evidence that sub-cultures, centred around, for example, work teams or parent organisations, are important for workers' perceptions of
their overall safety.
There are, thus, a number of dominant themes in relation to human factors and,
in particular, safety culture emerging from these oshore studies and other reported
studies in the literature (Cox and Flin, 1998). For example, the importance of management commitment and, in particular, the perceived priority accorded to safety
matters, has been repeatedly highlighted. Equally a number of studies (e.g. Flin et
al., 1996) have conrmed the need to consider not only key organisational factors,
but also to take account of individual factors, such as personal appreciation of risks
and involvement in safety-related decisions, as key inuences on safety performance,
and the related safety culture, within oshore environments. Similarly, potential
sub-cultures, characteristic of dierent occupational groups, and the concomitant
inuences on overall installation, or organisational, culture have been identied. As
a consequence of these studies, and recent discussions and conferences within the
oshore environment (Cross Industry Safety Leadership Forum, 1997; Cox and
Lacey, 1998), the awareness and development of an `appropriate' safety culture is

114

S.J. Cox, A.J.T. Cheyne / Safety Science 34 (2000) 111129

now seen to be an important area of concern with managers, regulators and

researchers. It has also been argued by researchers into oshore health and safety
management practices that the safety culture concept has the potential to provide an
umbrella for both individual and organisational safety issues (Cox and Flin, 1998)
and can be used as a vehicle for framing further improvements. However, although
there is indeed some evidence to suggest that assessing the prevailing organisational
culture can assist in the identication and management of health and safety issues
(Cox and Flin, 1998), the practical utility of the safety culture concept in securing
safety-related improvements in oshore environments has not yet been established
(Lee, 1995).
1.2. The current studies
The present studies are concerned with the development and testing of an assessment technique which provides both a practical tool for the assessment of safety
climate and simultaneously aids the promotion of a `positive' safety culture. The
studies described here are published in the ``Safety Climate Assessment Toolkit''
(Cox and Cheyne, 1999) together with a guide for those using the toolkit. In view of
the practical intentions of the studies and the nature of the output, potential toolkit
users in participating organisations were widely consulted in the development of the
conceptual framework. This framework has been described in a number of previous
publications (e.g. Cheyne et al., 1988; Cox et al., 1998; Cox and Cheyne, 1999) and
involves a holistic view of safety climate assessment. Assessments of safety climate
are used here as an indicator of overall safety culture. Culture in general, and safety
culture in particular, is often characterised as an enduring aspect of the organisation
with trait-like properties and not easily changed. Climate, on the other hand, can be
conceived of as a manifestation of organisational culture (Schein, 1985) exhibiting
more state-like properties. The nature of culture and climate and their relationship
has also been related to the concepts of personality and mood (Cox and Flin, 1998),
where culture represents the more trait-like properties of personality and climate the
more state-like properties of mood. For the purposes of this discussion climate is
viewed as a temporal manifestation of culture, which is reected in the shared perceptions of the organisation at a discrete point in time (Cox and Cheyne, 1999).
A multiple perspective, or holistic, model of the safety climate assessment process
was proposed and, as such, dominated the project design. Similar approaches are
discussed within the literature in relation to the assessment of organisational climate
(James and Jones, 1974; Cox and Cox, 1996; Denison, 1996). It has been suggested
(Jick, 1979) that organisational researchers and practitioners can improve the accuracy of their judgements by both utilising multiple methods and collecting dierent
kinds of data bearing on the same phenomenon, in this case safety climate. `Between
(or across) methods' triangulation (Denzin, 1978) oers such an approach. Jick
(1979) cites the example of reviewing the eectiveness of an organisational `leader',
where eectiveness may be studied by: (1) interviewing the leader; (2) observing their
leadership behaviours; and (3) evaluating performance records. The focus remains
with the organisational issue (in Jick's, 1979 example `leadership') but the mode of

S.J. Cox, A.J.T. Cheyne / Safety Science 34 (2000) 111129

115

data collection varies. Multiple and independent measures, if they provide supportive evidence, can thus provide a more certain picture (or prole) of the issue under
review (Denzin, 1978; Cox and Cheyne, 1999).
In the same vein James and Jones (1974) describe three dierent approaches to the
assessment of organisational culture (and climate) and, in doing so, oer commentary on its dierent (conceptual) loci. First, is the `multiple measurement-organisational attribute approach' which regards organisational climate exclusively as a set
of organisational attributes (or main eects), measurable by a variety of methods;
e.g. organisational structure or organisational systems measured by propriety audit
systems. Second, there is the `perceptual-organisational attribute approach', which
views organisational climate as a set of perceptual variables which are still seen as
organisational eects, e.g. views of the organisation's commitment, etc. Finally,
there is the `perceptual measurement-individual attribute approach' which captures
organisational climate through perceptions of individual attributes, e.g. individuals'
feelings and attitudes towards organisational issues, their related behaviour, etc.
Given the importance of both organisational and individual factors in inuencing
safety culture (James and Jones, 1974; Denison, 1996) it is suggested that in an
attempt to measure culture these dierent approaches should be treated as complementary and not as alternatives. Thus a multiple perspective was taken which
also combined dierent approaches to assessment, as recommended by Jick (1979).
This is illustrated in the framework model shown in Fig. 1.
In such a model, the representation of organisational safety culture is consistent
with one sponsor's preferred (HSE, 1997) denition. For example, the Advisory

Fig. 1. Multiple perspective model of safety culture assessment.

116

S.J. Cox, A.J.T. Cheyne / Safety Science 34 (2000) 111129

Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installations' (ACSNI) (Booth, 1996; ASCNI,

1993) denition, that safety culture is ``the product of individual and group values,
attitudes, perceptions, competencies, and patterns of behaviour that determine the
commitment to, and the style and prociency of, an organisation's health and safety
management'' (ASCNI, 1993, p. 23), is consistent with the representation in the
model. A similar approach has been taken in the assessment of safety culture in the
nuclear industry (Carroll, 1998) where aspects of the organisation derived through
peer observations and audit were considered alongside questionnaires. The data
were then used in ongoing discussions to further organisational learning.
1.3. Safety Climate Assessment Toolkit
The three methods proposed for use in a safety climate assessment exercise, and
illustrated in Fig. 1, form the basis of the assessment methods included in the Safety
Climate Assessment Toolkit. The toolkit is a practical instrument for in-house use
and it contains a selection of tools that can be used as part of the measurement
process. These tools include questionnaires, interview and focus discussion group
schedules and behavioural indicators. A full text and electronic version of the toolkit
can be found at http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/bs/safety
The remainder of this paper discusses some of the studies that contributed to the
development of these assessment methods. Two representative studies and a case
illustration, which collectively cover the issues of exploration, instrument development and practical use, are outlined here:
. Study 1 included a series of focus discussions which formed the basis of some
of the tools and measures which are developed in Study 2;
. Study 2 describes the development of a safety climate questionnaire; and
. the case illustration briey outlines a case study application of the questionnaire tools developed in Study 2 in a pilot organisation.
The accounts of the development of the behavioural indicators and the semistructured interview schedule, also included in the assessment process, are outside
the scope of the paper and are described within the ``Safety Climate Assessment
Toolkit'' (Cox and Cheyne, 1999). The nal discussions are focussed on the mutual
experiences of implementing the practical assessment process together with the perceived benets; e.g. the practical utility of the output of the assessment and the
potential for action planning.
2. Focus discussion groups (Study 1)
The rst study was concerned with exploring employees' understanding and perception of `safety culture'. These shared understandings and underpinning constructs were utilised in the design of subsequent studies and formed the bases of the
development of the assessment methodology. Focus discussion groups were

S.J. Cox, A.J.T. Cheyne / Safety Science 34 (2000) 111129

117

employed here for two reasons: (1) to elicit constructs based on individuals' notions
of `safety culture'; and (2) to provide initial indications of any dierences in overall
perceptions between dierent work groups in the study organisations. The focus
group studies were deemed to be particularly appropriate at this stage of the investigations since the data collected would be utilised as the basis for the toolkit development and, in particular, the development of the questionnaire tool. Focus groups
as a method are well accepted (Krueger, 1994) but they can be biased by a number
of factors, e.g. domination of the group by one member or too much direction by
the facilitator. These biases were controlled for by the use of a small number of
group facilitators who followed a structured discussion format.
2.1. Method
A series of focus group discussions (n=40) were conducted using both oshore
and onshore personnel in three separate organisations, at a total of six dierent
locations. These 40 discussion groups involved 375 employees in groups ranging
between three and 12 individuals. One hundred and eighty-one participants worked
in onshore locations and 194 were based on oshore installations. Eighty-three
managers and supervisors took part in the study. Wherever possible the groups were
homogenous and comprised either: (1) managers and supervisors; or (2) members of
the workforce. This promoted an atmosphere of open enquiry and, wherever possible, avoided inhibiting the group members (Carroll, 1998).
Each of the discussions involved four questions being put to the group participants, namely what they understood by the term safety, what they understood by
the term company culture, how safety ts into their picture of company culture and
what they understood by the term safety culture. The rst three questions were
designed to put participants at their ease and help focus their discussion of the
concept of safety culture. All members of the group were encouraged by the facilitator to make a response to the nal question.
Each of the focus group discussions were recorded on audiotape and then transcribed verbatim. These transcriptions were then subjected to a preliminary content
analysis (Holsti, 1969; Dane, 1990) involving two independent raters, and the
resulting keywords (based on the most commonly occurring constructs in the discussions of the concept of safety culture) were tabulated. There was 96% agreement
between raters on the classication of concepts. Where the raters did not agree on
the categorisation of a concept (in 13 cases), a third rater arbitrated. In addition to
the extraction of individual key constructs, general group feelings and perceptions of
safety were recorded as appropriate.
2.2. Results
All groups actively participated with a good degree of co-operation. The number
of occasions each concept was mentioned during the focus discussion groups is
shown in Table 1, together with a breakdown by organisation. The numbers shown
in brackets indicate the number of times each issue was raised in a negative sense.

118

S.J. Cox, A.J.T. Cheyne / Safety Science 34 (2000) 111129

Table 1
Focus group keywords
Keyword

Organisation 1

Organisation 2

Organisation 3

Total

Involvement in safety issues

Physical work environment
Priority of safety over other issues
Management actions for safety
Management commitment
Apportioning of blame
Safe systems/procedures
Accidents
Attitudes to personal safety
Safety training and instruction
Safety legislation

6(3)
2(2)
11(10)
3(2)
9(3)
5(4)

2(1)

67(20)
52(34)
44(37)
20(15)
21(6)
29(20)

5(1)

2(1)

27(21)
7(2)

23(17)
11(10)
10(2)

6(4)

73
56
55
50
37
34
23
11
10
7
6

Total number of discussion groups

19

15

40

For example, in the case of involvement, the number of time individuals felt that
they were not involved in safety issues.
Many of the non-managerial participants, especially within Organisation 2,
recounted experiences of not feeling that they were adding value to safety-related
processes and perceived that they were not involved in any safety decision-making
processes aecting anything other than routine day-to-day operations. Responses
from oshore workers suggest that they have a greater appreciation of risk than
onshore workers which, in turn, aects their perception of safety issues and may go
some way to explaining the many emotive comments made about the importance of
safety oshore. The responses from the onshore groups represented a more sanitised
viewpoint, given with much less emotion than those received from the oshore
groups. Several groups expressed the view that, although attitudes to safety had
improved, they perceived that the principles of risk management were providing the
main impetus for improvements in all three organisations. Combined responses
suggest that management were quite committed to safety although improvements
could still be made. Although some non-managerial participants, particularly in
oshore environments, related feelings that a blame culture existed.
2.3. Discussion
Of the constructs identied, management commitment, management actions for
safety and the physical work environment were the more common across all three
organisations, although involvement in safety issues and the priority given to safety
issues were also highlighted as important. These results give some indication of how
safety culture is perceived by those working in the oshore environment and are
consistent with earlier ndings both on and oshore (Zohar, 1980; Flin et al., 1996).
The constructs uncovered provided the basis, together with the review of current
literature on safety culture assessment (Cox and Flin, 1998) and climate identication, for the construction of a set of climate assessment tools. It should be noted

S.J. Cox, A.J.T. Cheyne / Safety Science 34 (2000) 111129

119

that, although the results of the studies described here were used primarily as an
important and essential starting point for the project, focus groups had further
potential for safety climate assessment in this environment.1 Furthermore the data
collected from the focus group studies supported the holistic view illustrated in Fig.
1, with reference being made to a range of organisational systems and artefacts and
to both organisational and individual factors.
3. Developing assessment methods (Study 2)
The second study is focussed on the development of one of the safety climate
assessment tools that are included in the toolkit (see earlier) and also builds upon the
constructs developed in Study 1. In particular this study describes the process
involved in developing the attitude questionnaire.
3.1. Development of the question bank
Over the last 5 years, a variety of safety attitude questionnaire surveys have been
carried out in the organisations participating in the project (e.g. Alexander et al.,
1994; Fitzpatrick, 1996). The common items and themes from the three survey
instruments were identied (and highlighted in Table 2). In addition to these studies,
Table 2
Oshore attitude survey dimensions and their origin
Oshore
questionnaires

Nuclear
(Lee, 1995)

Energy supply
(Donald, 1995)

Chemical/process
(Byrom and
Corbridge, 1997)

Management
commitment
Priority of safety

Management/supervisor support

Management
commitment

Communication

Safety information

Organisational
commitment and
communication
Reporting accidents Arrangements for
safety
and near
misses
Workmate's
inuence
Personal role
Personal scepticism,
personal immunity
Risk-taking
behaviour
Responsibility

Safety rules

Safety procedures,
safety rules

Supportive
environment
Personal priorities
and need for safety
Personal appreciation
of risk
Involvementa
Work environment
a

Safe working procedures

Work group support

Risk
Participation/
ownership
Design

Work environment:
hardware

Manufacturing
(Cox and Cox, 1991)

Safeness of the work

environment

Safeness of the work

environment

Indicates a dimension not previously covered by the surveys in participating organisations.

1
The results not only provided this basis for future development, but also gave the facilitators valuable
insights into the organisations under study.

120

S.J. Cox, A.J.T. Cheyne / Safety Science 34 (2000) 111129

safety attitude measures have also been developed and utilised in other industrial
sectors (e.g. Zohar, 1980; Brown and Holmes, 1986; Cox, 1988; Dedobbeleer and
Beland, 1991; Cooper and Philips, 1994; Mearns et al., 1998). An initial question
bank, derived from the initial in-house studies, was rened in the light of other
published studies. Consideration was given to developments within: (1) the nuclear
industry (Lee, 1995); (2) the energy supply industry (see Donald, 1995, for details);
(3) a variety of manufacturing settings (Cox and Cox, 1991; Cheyne and Cox, 1994;
Cox et al., 1998); and (4) the HSE attitudinal indicator of safety climate (Byrom and
Corbridge, 1997). Extra dimensions, not included in the common threads from previous studies in participating organisations, were included if common to two or
more of the external studies and if highlighted by the focus group discussions (Study
1). The full set of dimensions and their origin is shown in Table 2.
In summary, the initial question bank for the questionnaire instrument was,
therefore, based on:
1. an initial review of oshore surveys within the study organisations and the
establishment of common themes;
2. comparisons between these and instruments in other industrial sectors (in particular the nuclear and chemical/process industries); and
3. a review of the constructs identied in the focus discussion groups (Study 1 above).
These reviews and comparisons allowed a pilot questionnaire to be developed to
include 47 items covering the areas of Management Commitment, Communication,
Priority of Safety, Safety Rules and Procedures, Supportive Environment, Involvement, Personal Priorities and Need for Safety, Personal Appreciation of Risk and
Work Environment. This attitude questionnaire was piloted using a population of
oshore personnel in two locations. These personnel were asked not only to complete the questionnaire but also to comment on the general content and any specic
items they felt to be unclear. Sixty completed questionnaires were returned. The
main objective of this pilot study was to test the face validity of the items in the
questionnaire with an appropriate group. Comments were restricted to individual
items and resulted in two items being reworded and four items being deleted. The
new, 43-item questionnaire was tested on a larger pilot population.
3.2. Analysis
The questionnaire was distributed to 350 employees on three oshore installations. Two-hundred and twenty-one questionnaires were returned, representing a
63% response rate. There was no evidence that this sample was unrepresentative of
the total population. These data were subjected to a series of statistical tests including conrmatory factor analysis (CFA), internal-scale consistency and alternate
forms reliability tests.
3.2.1. Factor analysis
The data were subjected to CFA using version 5.1 of the EQS (structural equation)
program (Bentler and Wu, 1995). In CFA the researcher postulates a model (a

S.J. Cox, A.J.T. Cheyne / Safety Science 34 (2000) 111129

121

Table 3
Standardised factor loadings
Item

Loading

Management commitment
In my workplace management acts quickly to correct safety problems
Management acts decisively when a safety concern is raised
In my workplace management turn a blind eye to safety issues
Corrective action is always taken when management is told about unsafe practices
In my workplace managers/supervisors show interest in my safety
Management acts only after accidents have occurred
Managers and supervisors express concern if safety procedures are not adhered to

0.811
0.792
0.737
0.690
0.520
0.500
0.440

Priority of safety
Management clearly considers the safety of employees of great importance
I believe that safety issues are not assigned a high priority
Safety procedures are carefully followed
Management considers safety to be equally as important as production

0.665
0.585
0.585
0.534

Communication
There is good communication here about safety issues which aect me
Safety information is always brought to my attention by my line manager/supervisor
My line manager/supervisor does not always inform me of current concerns and issues
Management operates an open door policy on safety issues
I do not receive praise for working safely

0.721
0.633
0.594
0.541
0.481

Safety rules
Some safety rules and procedures do not need to be followed to get the job done safely
Some health and safety rules and procedures are not really practical
Sometimes it is necessary to depart from safety requirements for production's sake

0.724
0.685
0.583

Supportive environment
I am strongly encouraged to report unsafe conditions
I can inuence health and safety performance here
When people ignore safety procedures here, I feel it is none of my business
Employees are not encouraged to raise safety concerns
A no-blame approach is used to persuade people acting unsafely that their behaviour is inappropriate
Co-workers often give tips to each other on how to work safely

0.639
0.543
0.480
0.421
0.367
0.323

Involvement
I am involved in informing management of important safety issues
I am involved with safety issues at work
I am never involved in the ongoing review of safety

0.724
0.687
0.524

Personal priorities and need for safety

It is important that there is a continuing emphasis on safety
I understand the safety rules for my job
Safety is the number one priority in my mind when completing a job
A safe place to work has a lot of personal meaning to me
Personally I feel that safety issues are not the most important aspect of my job

0.655
0.642
0.623
0.571
0.500

Personal appreciation of risk

I am sure it is only a matter of time before I am involved in an accident
In my workplace the chances of being involved in an accident are quite large
I am rarely worried about being injured on the job
I am clear about what my responsibilities are for health and safety

0.782
0.464
0.286
0.273

Work environment
Operational targets often conict with safety measures
Sometimes I am not given enough time to get the job done safely
Sometimes conditions here hinder my ability to work safely
There are always enough people available to get the job done safely
I cannot always get the equipment I need to do the job safely
This is a safer place to work than other companies I have worked for

0.795
0.668
0.666
0.596
0.448
0.256

122

S.J. Cox, A.J.T. Cheyne / Safety Science 34 (2000) 111129

particular set of linkages between the observed variables and their underlying factors)
and then tests this model statistically, examining the degree to which it ts with the
available data. In its conrmatory approach, factor analysis is concerned with
implementing a theorist's hypothesis about how a domain of variables may be structured. The nine factors included in the questionnaire were already well-established
dimensions derived from the literature and so in this case, the hypothesis that is being
tested is whether the variables actually relate to each factor, or latent variable. An
exploratory approach would have been more appropriate if there had been no theoretical structure to the questionnaire and it was necessary to explore the factors it covered.
Incremental t indices measure the proportionate improvement in t by comparing a target model with a restricted baseline model, usually a null model in which all
the observed variables are independent. The comparative t index (CFI) was used as
it is one of the best t indices (Marsh et al., 1996). A value of around 0.9 is accepted
as indicating good model t.
A nine factor model was proposed and tested. This model indicated a relatively
poor t for the data (CFI=0.78) and so six constraints identied in the model
modication statistics were released. This involved six of the items being associated
with dierent factors. This improved the model t (CFI=0.85) and resulted in the
structure shown in Table 3. Each item is shown in this table with its standardised
loading, all of which were statistically signicant at the 0.05 level. It should be noted
that those items with relatively low factor loadings may not be wholly indicative of
the factor, but such items could be usefully consulted individually. Furthermore, in
any summation of factor scores these loading might be used to weight individual
items.
3.2.2. Reliability
Two forms of reliability were examined, internal-scale reliability and alternateforms reliability. Internal-scale reliability (or consistency) is applied to groups of
items that are thought to measure dierent aspects of the same concept (Litwin,
1995). This is important because a group of items that purports to measure one
variable should be clearly focused on that variable and the accepted level for this
statistic (Cronbach's alpha) is around 0.7. Measures of internal reliability for each of
Table 4
Factor internal reliability

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

Factor

Cronbach's a

Management commitment
Priority of safety
Communication
Safety rules
Supportive environment
Involvement
Personal priorities and need for safety
Personal appreciation of risk
Work environment

0.845
0.722
0.734
0.715
0.606
0.705
0.607
0.531
0.779

S.J. Cox, A.J.T. Cheyne / Safety Science 34 (2000) 111129

123

Table 5
Alternate-forms reliability coecients
Item

Inter-item correlation

Management acts decisively when a safety concern is raised

Managers and supervisors express concern if safety procedures are not adhered to
Management considers safety to be equally as important as production
There is good communication here about safety issues which aect me
Safety information is always brought to my attention by my line
manager/supervisor
Some health and safety rules and procedures are not really practical
Employees are not encouraged to raise safety concerns
When people ignore safety procedures here, I feel it is none of my business
I can inuence health and safety performance here
I am never involved in the ongoing review of safety
Safety is the number one priority in my mind when completing a job
I understand the safety rules for my job
It is important that there is a continuing emphasis on safety
I am rarely worried about being injured on the job
I cannot always get the equipment I need to do the job safely
Operational targets often conict with safety measures
Sometimes I am not given enough time to get the job done safely

0.622*
0.353*
0.583*
0.036
0.089
0.589*
0.561*
0.361*
0.555*
0.292
0.564*
1*
1*
0.664*
0.361*
0.363*
0.728*

*Signicance at the 0.05 level.

the factors in Table 3 are presented in Table 4. It can be seen that all the alphas
reported are in the range 0.53 through 0.84, the lower ones being consistent with
those factors where some original factor loadings were low.
Alternate-forms reliability involves comparing two dierent versions of the same
measure (Dane, 1990). In the case of the questionnaire, 30 subjects were asked to
complete the survey and then later, after an interval of at least 18 h, were asked 17 of
those items orally as part of an interview format. These items were chosen randomly
from the larger questionnaire. The inter-item correlations are shown in Table 5.
Only three of the inter-item correlations are non-signicant, indicating overall good
alternate-forms reliability. The low inter-item correlation in these cases may have
been due to the relatively small sample size involved and the eect of a few outlying
scores on such a sample.
3.3. Discussion
This study has dealt with one of the tools for use in a safety climate assessment, as
well as detailing its development, the instrument's reliability and consistency has
also been discussed. This tool has been based, wherever possible on the concepts
highlighted by the focus group discussions (Study 1) and a review of relevant literature pertaining to the measurement and assessment of safety culture and climate.
The organisations involved also requested that any questionnaire tool developed be
consistent with what had been used in the past. The nal section of this paper briey
describes the use of the toolkit and discusses some of the issues raised, the proling

124

S.J. Cox, A.J.T. Cheyne / Safety Science 34 (2000) 111129

of the results of the assessment process, and subsequent actions that may be considered by those assessing safety climate. The condential nature of the assessment
process makes it dicult to report this study in great detail.
4. Illustration of the toolkit in practice
The developed ``Safety Climate Assessment Toolkit'' process was initially tested
in one organisation involved in hydrocarbon production. The pilot organisation is
involved in the extraction of hydrocarbons, operating on various sites world-wide.
This organisation had a strong commitment to safety, health and environmental
excellence and also has a tradition of `quality'. The initial management characterisation of their culture for safety was one of `total commitment and safety excellence'. The organisation hoped to appreciate a broader perspective of shared
attitudes and communicate these goals through the use of the assessment toolkit, as
well as examining dierences between occupational groups. The toolkit procedures
were implemented by an in-house team, who only made use of back-up from the
research team in analysing the dierences between occupational groups.
The full assessment toolkit (Cox and Cheyne, 1999) consists of three sets of tools,
as described earlier: climate questionnaire, semi-structured interview schedule and a
set of behavioural indicators. It also provides guidance on their application and
interpretation. The organisation using the toolkit in this case considered the following sources of evidence:

Fig. 2. Radar plot for pilot organisation.

S.J. Cox, A.J.T. Cheyne / Safety Science 34 (2000) 111129

125

Table 6
Means for the three work groups involved in the studya
Dependent variable

Managers

Production

Drilling

Communication
Supportive environment
Involvement
Personal priorities
Personal appreciation of risk
Work environment

6.4
6.64
5.75
9.2
8.75
9.1

6.24
6.02
4.75
8.86
7.75
7.95

5.56
5.92
4.45
7.89
7.71
6.62

Emboldened groups dier signicantly from the others (Tukey tests, P<0.05).

1. organisational documentation and team observations;

2. data collected from sta interviews and focus groups; and
3. data collected via an employee attitude questionnaire (described in Study 2).
Much of the data were condential to the organisation in question; however, it
was prepared to share certain data as part of the development process. Discussion
here, therefore, focuses primarily on the use of the safety climate questionnaire in
the assessment of attitudes to safety within the organisation and its ability to differentiate between occupational groups.
4.1. Results
Two-hundred workers took part in the proling exercise and the results of climate
assessment surveys were represented on a radar plot graph (Fig. 2). These plots were
included at the request of the participants and provided a visual representation of
climate proles in dierent parts of the organisation (i.e. on dierent installations).
Each of the dimensions represented on the radar plot was scored on a standardised
scale (out of 10) and included not only questionnaire dimensions but also the data
collected from interviews and document audits.
Overall, the assessment process conrmed the organisation's strengths in the areas
of Management Commitment and Management Style and the implementation of
Safety Systems. The questionnaire survey, however, highlighted Communication
issues (with a standardised mean of 6.1), the Supportive Environment (with a standardised mean of 5.6) and Employee Involvement (with a mean of 4.9) as the three
areas most in need of improvement. The interviews and focus groups supported
these ndings in highlighting Co-operation and Safety Training as being relatively
poor, and the direct and indirect observations also found problems with Communication, e.g. unclear and/or ambiguous brieng documents. These preliminary
ndings illustrate some of the relationships between separate measures, particularly
those related to the work and supportive environments and involvement, which in
this case provided the initial focus for action in this organisation.
An examination of the dierences between certain occupational groups was also
made. The organisation involved in this study was particularly interested in dier-

126

S.J. Cox, A.J.T. Cheyne / Safety Science 34 (2000) 111129

ences between managers, production teams and drilling teams. A series of one-way
analyses of variance were performed for each factor in the attitude questionnaire.
Dierences in mean scores (standardised to a 10-point scale for each factor) for each
of the three groups are shown in Table 6.
Dierences were found in six of the questionnaire dimensions with drilling teams
showing signicantly lower evaluations than managers in terms of Supportive
environment, Involvement, Personal appreciation of risk and Work environment
and lower evaluations of Communication and Personal priorities than both managers and production teams. Production teams, however, only diered signicantly
from managers in terms of Involvement, Personal appreciation of risk and work
environment. These nding are consistent with those of Mearns et al. (1998) suggesting that drilling teams, who often belong to another `parent organisation' may
have their own sub-culture and may, consequently, nd themselves outside various
communication channels.
4.2. Discussion
Users found the process straightforward and found little diculty in constructing
their safety climate prole. Users then examined the initial questionnaire items and
interview responses in order to get some notion of the exact nature of any problems
highlighted by poor scores. This investigation revealed that a large number of
employees felt that they were not involved, in, or informed of, safety initiatives,
indeed it was perceived that a small group of `select' people were the only individuals
involved in any safety activities, and these individuals gave little, or no, support to
others on safety issues. These feelings were also reected with regard to safety
training. Once again, the majority of those questioned felt that they were not
informed of relevant training or encouraged to attend courses, other than those
legally required.
Several initiatives are planned as a result of these ndings. Firstly, the users have
decided to actively promote, with the help of the training manager, the range of
safety training courses on oer. This involves listings of appropriate courses
appearing in the company newsletter, as well as announcements at all team meetings
in an attempt to reach the various `sub-cultures'. Team meetings are also to be used,
in the rst instance, to encourage individuals to get involved in, and indeed to propose, new safety initiatives. The user will reassess the safety climate prole when
these measures have been in place for at least 1 year.
5. Discussion
This paper has described the development of an innovative approach to assessing
culture, and specically safety culture and climate. The development of the ``Safety
Climate Assessment Toolkit'' has exploited the notions of multiple organisational
perspectives and data triangulation (Jick, 1979). It utilises approaches which can be
combined to provide an in-depth picture of an organisation's current safety climate.

S.J. Cox, A.J.T. Cheyne / Safety Science 34 (2000) 111129

127

During this process reliance is not placed on any single form of assessment, e.g.
questionnaires, nor is it placed on any single part of the overall system, e.g. only
organisational systems and compliance. It builds upon a holistic approach and provides
a `rich-picture' of the overall safety climate as recommended by Cox and Flin (1998).
The immediate benets of using the toolkit are the proling of safety climate and
the action planning that this prole allows. In theory, achieving and maintaining a
positive safety climate will provide an environment where improvements in safety
performance can be made (ASCNI, 1993). Specic benets of using the toolkit can
be summarised as: (1) providing a focus for raising the prole of health and safety;
(2) allowing active monitoring in support of other processes; (3) providing an
opportunity for sensitive issues to be discussed, which in other circumstances may be
seen as disruptive; (4) providing a focus for working together on safety issues; and
(5) facilitating benchmarking, both internally and externally.
The particular assessment tool described in Study 2, the employee attitude questionnaire, has been extensively piloted. The initial analysis has shown the instrument
to be reliable in terms of what it measures, and sensitive enough to uncover dierences between occupational groups. The initial feedback also suggests that the
questionnaire is easy to administer and prole. Similarly users found the toolkit's
interview schedule and behavioural observations practical and straightforward. The
prole, once completed in the pilot organisation, allowed the various relationships
between its measures to be examined in detail. The results of the initial climate
assessment exercise have provided the organisation in Study 3 with several useful
prompts for future action, as well as highlighting the level at which these actions
should be aimed.
5.1. Future development
The employee attitude questionnaire, and the ``Safety Climate Assessment
Toolkit'' in general, will be the subject of further rigorous evaluation through their
use in the oshore oil extraction industry. In particular the utility of the instruments
in planning improvements and their ability to detect changes will be investigated.
The toolkit is freely available to interested managers and safety practitioners in
either written or electronic formats.
A subsidiary aim of the assessment process is to stimulate discussion and
improvement through the assessment process. Organisations using the toolkit may
nd that, through time, it will be appropriate to customise the tools presented here
and/or develop in-house instruments to chart the full range of indicators they feel
are important. User groups may also be established and thus allow for benchmarking and discussion across oshore installations and organisations.
Acknowledgements
The studies described in this paper have been funded and supported by the Oshore Safety Division of HSE, Chevron UK, Chevron Gulf of Mexico (Ship Shoal/

128

S.J. Cox, A.J.T. Cheyne / Safety Science 34 (2000) 111129

Eugene Island), Mobil North Sea and Oryx UK. The authors would like to
acknowledge the assistance of Martin Alexander and Bill Cockburn in the gathering
of data. The views expressed here are those of the authors and are not necessarily
representative of any other individual or organisation.
References
ACSNI, 1993. Organising for Safety Third Report of the Human Factors Study Group of ACSNI.
HMSO, London.
Alexander, M., Cox, S., Cheyne, A., 1994. The concept of safety culture within a UK based organisation
engaged in oshore hydrocarbon processing. Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Conference on Safety
and Well-being at Work, Loughborough University of Technology, UK, November 12.
Bentler, P.M., Wu, E.J.C., 1995. EQS for Windows User's Guide. Multivariate Software, Inc, Encino,
CA.
Booth, R.T., 1996. The promotion and measurement of a positive safety culture. In: Stanton, N. (Ed.),
Human Factors in Nuclear Safety. Taylor and Francis, London, pp. 313332.
Brown, R.L., Holmes, H., 1986. The use of a factor-analytic procedure for assessing the validity of an
employee safety climate model. Accident Analysis and Prevention 18, 455470.
Byrom, N., Corbridge, J., 1997. The Assessment of an Organisation's Health and Safety Climate. OECD
Workshop on Human Performance in Chemical Process Safety, Munich.
Carroll, J., 1998. Safety culture as an ongoing process: cultural surveys as opportunities for enquiry and
change. Work and Stress 12, 272284.
Cheyne, A., Cox, S., 1994. A comparison of employee attitudes to safety. Proceedings of the Fourth
Conference on Safety and Well-being at Work, Loughborough University of Technology, UK,
November 12.
Cheyne, A., Cox, S., Oliver, A., Tomas, J.M., 1988. Modelling safety climate in the prediction of levels of
safety activity. Work and Stress 12, 255271.
Cooper, M.D., Philips, R.A., 1994. Validation of a safety climate measure. Proceedings of the British
Psychological Society: Annual Occupational Psychology Conference, Birmingham, 35 January.
Cox, S., 1988. Employee Attitudes to Safety, M.Phil. thesis, University of Nottingham, UK.
Cox, S., Cox, T., 1991. The structure of employee attitudes to safety: a European example. Work and
Stress 5, 93106.
Cox, S., Cox, T., 1996. Safety, Systems and People. Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford.
Cox, S., Flin, R., 1998. Safety culture: philosopher's stone or man of straw? Work and Stress 12, 189201.
Cox, S., Lacey, K., 1998. Measuring Safety Culture in Oshore Environments: Developing the Safety
Climate Assessment Toolkit. Paper presented at Changing Health and Safety Oshore, The Agenda for
the next 10 years, Aberdeen, 2224 July.
Cox, S., Cheyne, A., 1999. Assessing Safety Culture in Oshore Environments. HSE Oshore Research
Report, Loughborough University, UK.
Cox, S., Tomas, J.M., Cheyne, A., Oliver, A., 1998. Safety culture: the prediction of commitment to safety
in the manufacturing industry. British Journal of Management 9, S3S11.
Cross Industry Safety Leadership Forum, 1997. Step Change in Safety. Safety Leadership Forum.
Cullen, Hon Lord, 1990. The Public Inquiry into the Piper Alpha Disaster. HMSO, London.
Dane, F.C., 1990. Research Methods. Brooks/Cole, Pacic Grove, CA.
Dedobbeleer, N., Beland, F., 1991. A safety climate measure for construction sites. Journal of Safety
Research 22, 97103.
Denison, D.R., 1996. What is the dierence between organizational culture and organizational climate A
native's point of view on a decade of paradigm wars? Academy of Management Review 21, 619654.
Denzin, N.K., 1978. The Research Act, 2nd Edition. McGraw-Hill, New York.
Donald, I., 1995. Safety attitudes as a basis for promoting safety culture: an example of an intervention.
Work and Well-being: An Agenda for Europe Conference, Nottingham, December 1995.

S.J. Cox, A.J.T. Cheyne / Safety Science 34 (2000) 111129

129

Fitzpatrick, D., 1996. Employee Attitudes Oshore. Unpublished M.Sc. dissertation, Loughborough
University, UK.
Flin, R.H., Mearns, K.J., 1994. Risk Perception and Safety in the Oshore Oil Industry. Second International Conference on Health, Safety, and the Environment in Oil and Gas Exploration, Jakarta.
Flin, R., Mearns, K., Fleming, M., Gordon, R., 1996. Risk Perception and Safety in the Oshore Oil and
Gas Industry, (Oshore Technology Report OTH 94 454). HSE Books, Sudbury.
Hale, A.R., Hovden, J., 1998. Management and culture: the third age for safety. A review of approaches
to organizational aspects of health, safety and environment. In: Feyer, A.-M., Williamson, A. (Eds.),
Occupational Injury: Risk, Prevention and Intervention. Taylor and Francis, London, pp. 129165.
Hofmann, D.A., Stetzer, A., 1998. The role of safety climate and communication in accident interpretation: implications for learning from negative events. Academy of Management Journal 41, 644657.
Holsti, O.R., 1969. Content Analysis for the Social Sciences and Humanities. Addison-Wesley, Reading,
MA.
HSE, 1997. Health and Safety Climate Tool Process Guidelines. Health and Safety Exectutive Books,
Sudbury.
James, L.R., Jones, A.P., 1974. Organisational climate: a review of theory and research. Psychological
Bulletin 81 (12), 10961112.
Jick, T.D., 1979. Mixing qualitative and quantitative methods: triangulation in action. Administrative
Science Quarterly 24, 602611.
Krueger, R.A., 1994. Focus Groups, 2nd Edition. Sage, Thousand Oaks.
Lee, T.R., 1995. The role of attitudes in the safety culture and how to change them. Conference on
`Understanding Risk Perception', Oshore Management Centre, Robert Gordon University, 2 February, Aberdeen.
Litwin, M.S., 1995. How to Measure Survey Reliability and Validity. Sage, Thousand Oaks.
Marek, J., Tangenes, B., Hellesouy, O., 1985. Experience of Risk and Safety. Work Environment Statfjord Field. Oslo University.
Marsh, H.W., Balla, J.R., Hau, K., 1996. An evaluation of incremental t indices: a clarication of
mathematical and empirical properties. In: Marcoulides, G.A., Schumacker, R.E. (Eds.), Advanced
Structural Equation Modeling: Issues and Techniques. LEA, Mahwah, NJ, pp. 315354.
Mearns, K., Flin, R., Gordon, R., Flemming, M., 1998. Measuring safety climate on oshore installations. Work and Stress 12, 238254.
Rundmo, T., 1993. Risk perception and occupational accidents on oshore petroleum platforms. Paper
presented at the 2nd Oshore Installation Management Conference, The Robert Gordon University,
Aberdeen, April.
Schein, E.H., 1985. Organisational Culture and Leadership. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.
Zohar, D., 1980. Safety climate in industrial organisations: theoretical and applied implications. Journal
of Applied Psychology 65 (1), 96102.