Making safety culture a corporate culture: Modern safety thinking

Safety Culture is something that has actively been worked with in the nuclear industry for a long time. Formally it has been on the agenda since the Chernobyl accident. However, the work with creating a safe organizational culture can of course be traced back even further in time. Over the years a lot has happened in the approach to safety culture and especially the view of human being as a part of the system and how the humans interact with the organization and technology. The paper is a general overview and will look at the evolution of the work conducted in establishing safety culture in the nuclear industry. Further, the aspects of modern safety thinking will be discussed and how this will aid in the continuous progression of safety culture. It will also highlight some of the problems in the past and present approach towards safety culture and how this can hinder future development. Finally, the importance of how to make safety culture into a corporate culture will be explained. (author)