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1、Safety Management Systems1. Accident Causation ModelsThe most important aim of safety management is to maintain and promote workers health and safety at work. Understanding why and how accidents and other unwanted events develop is important when preventive activities are planned. Accident theories

2、aim to clarify the accident phenomena，and to explain the mechanisms that lead to accidents. All modem theories are based on accident causation models which try to explain the sequence of events that finally produce the loss. In ancient times, accidents were seen as an act of God and very little coul

3、d be done to prevent them. In the beginning of the 20th century，it was believed that the poor physical conditions are the root causes of accidents. Safety practitioners concentrated on improving machine guarding, housekeeping and inspections. In most cases an accident is the result of two things ：Th

4、e human act, and the condition of the physical or social environment Petersen extended the causation theory from the individual acts and local conditions to the management system. He concluded that unsafe acts, unsafe conditions，and accidents are all symptoms of something wrong in the organizational

5、 management system. Furthermore, he stated that it is the top management who is responsible for building up such a system that can effectively control the hazards associated to the organizations operation. The errors done by a single person can be intentional or unintentional. Rasmussen and Jensen h

6、ave presented a three-level skill-rule-knowledge model for describing the origins of the different types of human errors. Nowadays，this model is one of the standard methods in the examination of human errors at work.Accident-proneness models suggest that some people are more likely to suffer anaccid

7、ent than others. The first model was created in 1919，based on statistical examinations in a mumilions factory. This model dominated the safety thinking and research for almost 50 years, and it is still used in some organizations. As a result of this thinking, accident was blamed solely on employees

8、rather than the work process or poor management practices. Since investigations to discover the underlying causal factors were felt unnecessary and/or too costly, a little attention was paid to how accidents actually happened. Employees* attitudes towards risks and risk taking have been studied, e.

9、g. by Sulzer-Azaroff. According to her, employees often behave unsafely, even when they are fully aware of the risks involved. Many research results also show that the traditional promotion methods like campaigns, posters and safety slogans have seldom increased the use of safe work practices. When

10、backed up by other activities such as training, these measures have been somewhat more effective. Experiences on some successful methods to change employee behavior and attitudes have been reported. One well-known method is a small-group process used for improving housekeeping in industrial workplac

11、es. A comprehensive model of accident causation has been presented by Reason who introduced the concept of organizational error. He stated that corporate culture is the starting-point of the accident sequence. Local conditions and human behavior are only contributing factors in the build-up of the u

12、ndesired event. The latent organizational failures lead to accidents and incidents when penetrating systems defenses and barriers. Gmoeneweg has developed Reasons model by classifying the typical latent error types. His TRIPOD mode! calls the different errors as General Failure Types （ CFTs）. The co

13、ncept of organizational error is in conjunction with the fact that some organizations behave more safely than others. It is often said that these organizations have good safety culture. After the Chernobyl accident，this term became well-known also to the public.Loss prevention is a concept that is o

14、ften used in the context of hazard control in process industry. Lees has pointed out that loss prevention differs from traditional safety approach in several ways. For example, there is more emphasis on foreseeing hazards and taking actions before accidents occur. Also, there is more emphasis on a s

15、ystematic rather than a trial and error approach. This is also natural, since accidents in process industry can have catastrophic consequences. Besides the injuries to people, I he damage to plant and loss of profit are major concerns in loss prevention. The future research on the ultimate causes of

16、 accidents seems to focus on the functioning and management of the organization. The strategic management, leadership, motivation, and the personnels visible and hidden values are some issues that are now under intensive study.2. Safety Management as an Organizational ActivitySafety management is on

17、e of the management activities of a company. Different companies have different management practices，and also different ways to control health and safety hazards. Organizational culture is a major component affecting organizational performance and behavior. One comprehensive definition for an organi

18、zational culture has been presented by Schein who has said that organizational culture is “a pattern of basic assumptionsinvented，discovered, or developed by a given group as it leans to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integrationthat has worked well enough to be considere

19、d valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems. The concept of safety culture is today under intensive study in industrialized countries. Booth & Lee have stated that an organizations safety culture is a subset of the

20、 overall organizational culture. This argument, in fact, suggests that a companys organizational culture also determines the maximum level of safety the company can reach. The safety culture of an organization is the product of individual and group values, attitudes, perceptions, competencies, and p

21、atterns of behavior that determine the commitment to, and the style and proficiency of, an organizations health and safety management. Furthermore, organizations with a positive safety culture are characterized by communications founded on mutual trust, by shared perceptions of the importance of saf

22、ety, and by confidence in the efficacy of preventive measures. There have been many attempts to develop methods for measuring safety culture. Williamson el al. have summarized some of the factors that the various studies have shown to influence organizations safety culture. These include ：organizati

23、onal responsibility for safety, management attitudes towards safety, management activity in responding to health and safety problems, safety training and promotion，level of risk at the workplace，workers involvement in safety，and status of the safety officer and the safety committee.Organizations beh

24、ave differently in the different parts of the world. This causes visible differences also in safety activities, both in employee level and in the management level. Reasons for these differences are discussed in the following. The studies of Wobbe reveal that shop-floor workers in the USA are, in gen

25、eral, less trained and less adaptable than those in Germany or Japan. Wobbe claims that one reason for this is that, in the USA, companies providing further training for their staff can expect to lose these people to the competitors. This is not so common in Europe or in Japan. Furthermore ，for unio

26、nized companies in the USA，seniority is valued very highly，while training or individuals skills and qualifications do not effect job security，employment, and wage levels very much. Oxenburgh has studied the total costs of absence from work, and found that local culture and legislation has a strong e

27、ffect on absenteeism rates. For example, the national systems for paying and receiving compensation explain the differences to some extent. Oxenburgh mentions Sweden as a high absenteeism country, and Australia as a low absenteeism country. In Sweden injuries and illnesses are paid by the state soci

28、al security system, while in Australia, the employer pays all these costs, including illnesses not related to work. Comparison of accident statistics reveals that there are great national differences in accident frequencies and in the accident related absenteeism from work. Some of the differences c

29、an be explained by the different accident reporting systems. For example, in some countries only absenteeism lasting more than three working days is included in the statistics. The frequency of minor accidents varies a lot according to the possibility to arrange substitutive work to the injured work

30、er. Placing the injured worker to another job or to training is a common practice for example in the USA and in the UK, while in the Scandinavian countries this is a rarely used procedureSome organizations are more aware of the importance of health and safety at work than others. Clear development s

31、tages can be found in the process of improving the management of safety. Waring has divided organizations to three classes according to their maturity and ability to create an effective safety management system. Waring calls the three organizational models as the mechanical model, the socio-technica

32、l model, and the human activity system approach. In the mechanical model, the structures and processes of an organization are well-defined and logical, but people as individuals, groups, and the whole organizations are not considered. The socio-technical model is an approach to work design which rec

33、ognizes the interaction of technology and people，and which produces work systems that are technically effective and have characters that lead to high job satisfaction. A positive dimension in this model is that human factors are seen important, for example, in communication, training and emergency responses. The last model, the human activity syste