Knowledge management methodologies for improving safety culture

According to complexity theory, culture is an emerging property of organizations and it is the result of continuous interaction between individual and group viewpoints and of continuous competition between current and new tools to understand a variable context. Knowledge Management (KM) and Education and Training (E&T) methodologies play a fundamental role in Safety Culture improvement and they should be integrated, in an interactive and dynamic way, in order to reflect complexity of organization, exploiting innovative architectures and models where safety is a primary goal and a strong fil rouge which connects different disciplines at all levels and represents a leading driver for the process of knowledge creation and awareness development. Therefore, the final goal and the expected outcome of an integrated and well-designed KM-E&T system is to develop systemic vision and improve Safety Culture within the organization through continuous and dynamic interaction of Education and Training actions, Knowledge Management and people's active involvement at all levels of the organization. In the paper, main characteristics and specific features of integrated KM-E&T systems are presented. (author)