The Baker Panel Report - ABSA

Some of these prior events or defining periods may be common to similar organizations in the same industry or in similar situations. Others maybe unique to a particular organization. Local conditions and factors also affect safety cultures as expressed at a particular site. 20 As a result,values, beliefs, and underlying assumptions can vary—from one work group, or even one work site, to another—within the sameorganization. 21Additionally, commercial considerations, including cost control and production, play a role in defining the safety culture of an organization. Allorganizations that produce goods and services not only face limitations on resources, including money, but also must effectively manage thetension that exists between the operational demands relating to production and those relating to safety. One author summarized this naturaltension:It is clear from in-depth accident analyses that some of the most powerful pushes towards local [culture] traps comefrom an unsatisfactory resolution of the inevitable conflict that exists (at least in the short-term) between the goals ofsafety and production. The cultural accommodation between the pursuit of these goals must achieve a delicate balance.On the one hand, we have to face the fact that no organization is just in the business of being safe. Every company mustobey both the ‘ALARP’ principle (keep the risks as low as reasonably practicable) and the ‘ASSIB’ principle (and still stayin business). 22What an organization believes is the appropriate balance between safety and production considerations, and how it organizes itself toaccomplish this balance, serves in part to define the organization’s safety culture. An organization should recognize that a wide variety ofstakeholders, including owners/shareholders, managers, workers, and the public at large, have interests in its safety culture. Moreover, anorganization with a strong safety culture does not lose sight of the fact that the stakeholders with the most to lose—their lives—are workersand members of the public living or working near hazardous operating units.Overview of Process Safety, Personal Safety, and Corporate Safety Culture C 24