Safety Culture in Military Aviation - Term Paper Example

The Safety Culture in Military aviation The organizational culture has been the focus of many researches to find out ways for enhancing the cultural aspects that would in turn affect the organizational performance. Each organization has its own specific culture, such as corporate culture for corporations1 (Deal and Kennedy 1983). The corporations are developing strategies to modify their culture as many changes in the global market has ascertained the necessity of adopting new technologies which needs a cultural change. In addition to this, organizational culture is a chief component for attaining organizational goals and objectives, efficiency and effectiveness, as well as to manage the change2 (Adeyoyin 2006). In the same way, military organizations do have their own specific culture which is known as safety culture. There are number of military organizations which have undergone a cultural change to bring more effectiveness in their safety culture. The aim of this essay is to discuss the safety culture in military aviation, its cultural aspects, how it has formed this way, and the ways in which it can be more enhanced. The organizational culture Organizational culture has been defined broadly as, “the culture is the mutually shared norms, values, and assumptions”3 (Schein 1985). This definition entails that members of each of the organization share similar beliefs, attitudes, perceptions, and values. In modest words, it can be said as the culture is the methods of how things get done in any particular organizational setting. Additionally, it can be referred as the mutual encoding of the brains that distinguishes the members of one organization from the other. Many researches have empirically investigated the importance of the organizational culture which is considered to be the significant factor in achieving organizational success and effectiveness as well as a cause of unremitting competitive edge4 (Barney 1991). In addition to this, organizational culture has important implications in the organization’s success in a way that when the goals and objectives for the organizations are determined then the cultural attributes are also considered which are required in attainment of these goals5 (Ojo 2010). Fey and Denison (2003) has recognized and verified four significant aspects of organizational culture which play important role in the effectiveness of organization, such as “adaptability, mission, involvement, as well as consistency”. Adaptability can be regarded as, the extent of an organization to accept the change in the organization’s conducts, edifices, and methods so as to endure in the dynamic market or environmental conditions. Mission is basically the main purpose of the organization which is mutually communicated to all the members. Involvement is such a cultural aspect which denotes to the extent of employees’ participation in the process of decision making. Consistency is defined as the degree to which principles, ethics, and beliefs are detained steadily by the organizational members6 (Fey and Denison 2003). Understanding the “Safety Culture” Safety culture is a sub section of corporate culture, where the talk is about personal, work-related, and organizational factors which has impact and influence on health as well as safety7 (Pierce 1998). Safety culture is prevalent in the high-care or risky organizations especially, such as in military aviation organizations whose priority is ‘safety at all levels’. CANSO (Civil Air Navigation Services Organization) has proposed a definition for safety culture, def. “Safety culture refers to the enduring value, priority and commitment placed on safety by every individual and every group at every level of the organization. Safety culture reflects the individual, group and organizational attitudes, norms and behaviors related to the safe provision of air navigation services.8” (CANSO 2013). So, safety culture includes such behaviors and attitudes where all the members’ first priority is “safety”. Sub cultures or elements of a Strong Safety culture There is a theoretical approach towards the safety culture, in which James Reason has emphasized over the importance of five components or sub-cultures within the safety culture, such as “learning culture, reporting culture, flexible culture, informed culture and just culture9” (Reason 1997). Further three more elements are added in this approach of safety culture by CANSO group, such as “Risk Perception, Attitudes to Safety and Safety-Related Behavior” (CANSO 2013). These elements are interrelated with each other, for instance, informed culture is dependent over the good reporting culture. Figure 1 Elements of a strong safety culture provided by Reason 1997 and CANSO 2013, Image source: (Safety Culture Standing Committee 2010) Firstly, in the reporting, managers and other employees easily communicate the perilous safety information regardless of fearing for any disciplinary action. Though, all of the organization do have a reporting system, but reporting culture means another thing where people report all the crucial issues regarding the safety. It emphasizes on the ways by which organizations manage the slip-ups, inaccuracies, commendations and penalties (Reason 1997). Secondly, in Just culture, organizations must have a climate of “trust” where employees are stimulated for reporting crucial information with regard to safety, but in a just culture they must be understood the distinction between the adequate and inadequate behaviors. They must undoubtedly know that it is intolerable to penalize every mistake and insecure actions irrespective of their backgrounds and conditions, as well as, it is correspondingly objectionable too if they give a cover to all activities which can be the sources of any accidents in the organizations. Justice is to be preferred above all. Reporting culture is dependent on the just culture (Reason 1997). Thirdly, the informed culture is a culture where people who operate and manage the organizational systems and structures do have relevant know-how regarding the aspects which define the safety for the organization from the horizon. Such aspects are related to people, processes, organization and the outer environment. Organizational Management nurtures such a culture in which people recognize the dangers and jeopardies intrinsic to their locus of working. Employees are given proper training and skills for safer working. They are motivated to communicate if they see any danger or risk in safety so that it could be recognized before accident and required modifications can be done. So, informed culture heavily dependent on a powerful reporting culture (Reason 1997). Fourthly, in learning culture, the organization must have the readiness and the capability to deduce the accurate inferences from the application of its safety information system as well as the determination to apply most important restructurings. Information that is reported in reporting culture is only operative if such organization learns from these reports. Organizational Learning will happen from both of the responsive and preemptive safety evaluations. In addition to these evaluations, learning is also stimulated by an integral organizational readiness to adopt and progress with necessary modifications (Reason 1997). Fifthly, the flexible culture is a culture where an organization has the capability to reorganize itself when there is a disorganization due to high pace maneuvers or certain types of jeopardies, such as changing the conservative hierarchical stiff style into the flatter style. So, a culture of safety needs to be flexible, due to the fact that there is variations in decision making processes, contingent on conditions when there is earnestness of taking any decision or it also depend over the proficiency of the personnel involved (Reason 1997). Sixthly, the risk perceptions are important where all the organizational members must share same values, sensitivities, and verdicts regarding the safety issues and the sensitivity of the hazards, due to the fact that individuals do response to these on the basis of their sensitivities and take decisions with regard to their verdicts. If they won’t be common in all members then it could be hazardous. These sensitivities of hazards and people’s verdicts of insecurity are prejudiced by diverse elements of hazards, such as manageable or unmanageable (CANSO 2013). Mistakes of assessing the hazards result in unsuitable decisions pertaining to safety dealings and normal job-related mishaps in addition to far-reaching calamities10 (Rundmo 1997). Seventh element in attitude towards safety which includes the attitudes of managers and leaders of the organizations with respect to the safety and hazards. Their commitment is far-important in creating a safety culture. Researches have demonstrated that management attitudes and commitments to safety can be related with the risk perception as well as safety-related behaviors (CANSO 2013). Eighthly, Safety-related behavior is involved in openly conforming with measures, guidelines and systems, and also to the other important features such as training, identifying, disseminating, representing, and vigorously concerning. Devising precise hazard insights does not certainly cause precise hazard and safety-related activities. Lack of knowledge or thoughtful destructions to the safety procedures and measures are frequently due to employees’ attitudes towards hazard and safety. So, there is need of involvement of all members in identifying, highlighting and monitoring hazard for safety performance11 (Hale, et al. 2010). Safety Culture Framework Cooper (2000) has also given safety culture framework in context of military aviation organizations where safety culture are such values which are common in the organizational members with regard to three aspects, psychological, behavioral and situational aspects. Psychological aspects are involved in the how people feel about the safety, behavioral aspects are involved what actually people do for safety at all levels, and the situational aspects are involved in what organization possess for the safety. These aspects should be improved or modified on the continuous basis for ensuring the safety culture12 (Cooper 2000). Figure 2 A Framework of safety culture. (Cooper 2000) The safety culture’s success lies in these three aspects, for that purpose, they must be continuously monitored. These can also be used as an assessment framework for any organizational safety culture that either their culture is ensuring safety or not (CANSO 2013). When the people of organizations do have such values and perceptions which lead towards the care for safety then this fulfills the psychological aspects and this is also known as safety climate. Behavioral aspects are much more important to be prevalent and be modified with time, for the fact that only feel for safety is not necessary until it is not implemented in practice. For that purpose, the commitment from management and the people of organization to execute them in practice is very much important. Moreover, organizational systems and structures must also support the safety culture by developing some strategies for that. These aspects can assess a safety culture in any organization. Safety culture in Military Aviation of Australia Safety is considered to be much challenging goal in an already unsafe working environment, such as in a defense force or military aviation. Double-faced military goals, such as threat to life and threat to properties, are difficult to achieve, but there exists safety in military aviation as well13 (Falconer 2005). In this section, the problems associated with the safety culture of the Australian Defense Force (ADF), where Australian military aviation is a sub-component14 (Australian Defence Force CRM Working Group 2000). This is achieved by application of all the elements of the safety culture as given by James Reason and CANSO which are very important in building a strong safety culture. The framework given by Cooper (2000) is also applied for assessing the safety culture in Australian military aviation. For the purpose, there the investigation is made for accidents and mishaps happened in military aviation of Australia, as argued by McDonald and Johnstone 1994 that such investigation is important in assessing the safety failure issues15 (McDonald and Johnston 1994). DFS (Directorate of Flying Safety) 2005 in ADF has reported many accidents and mishaps in the military aviation. Such accidents involved, the breaking of tail plane, mismanaged landing of aircraft, crashing in the mid-air, pilot exhaustion, loss of control during stunts, sudden engine shutdown, Fuel tank burst, abandoned flight, and pilot negligence. There were much more incidents whose causes were not be able to identify. Though, there were some technical failures too, but most of the incidents were found to be human related factors and overall related to the weak safety culture. The ADF’s senior management argued for having a healthy safety culture but this was merely a self-praised statement, but there are some gaps in their statement and practice16 (Directorate of Flying Safety - ADF 2005). Following are given some of these factors. First of all, the reason for such mishaps is the inefficiencies in organization related factor. This factor can be related to the situational aspect of the framework given by Cooper (2000). The DFS-ADF reports noted that there were higher workloads, low level of personnel due to high rate of resignations, and the destruction of corporate knowledge. This entails the organizational systems, structures, personnel to be improved for the purpose of achieving high safety culture. As Cooper (2000) has suggested that the answer to the question of “what organization has” with regard to safety is crucial. For the fact that, if the people do possess good behaviors and attitudes towards safety and they work for it as well (fulfilling the psychological and behavioral aspects) then the safety culture cannot be practiced if there is lacking in organizational structure and systems for the safety issues then it is troublesome. Reporting issues were another important factor that there was a lack of reporting culture, many of incidents and previous accidents which caused more catastrophic events were not reported earlier. It should always be remembered that an accident is the product of many other sequential events which were remained unidentified17 (Department of Defence 2003). This cannot be happened only in case of technical issues, rather the cultural issues are also important to be identified. In addition to this, it signified the importance of reporting culture in building a healthy safety culture. In a reporting culture, people must report all the critical matters regarding the safety. It highlights specifically the conducts by which organizations handle the errors, wrongness, awards and punishments. Usually, people hide some crucial issues due to fear of being penalized, but it should not be the case, they must report every issue which can be catastrophic in future. As the informed culture and the just culture both are dependent on the reporting culture, so this will in turn affect the whole safety culture. Another important factor is the attitudes of management or leadership of the organization regarding the safety culture. The management strongly believes that they have the best and strong safety culture and they give their full priority to the safety matters. This could be the reason of their egoistic and self-appraisal behaviors reported by DFS. Thus, such attitude make people to be biased for themselves and degrading others, and this resulted in no assessment of the safety culture, which must be evaluated on the continuous basis. This factor is related to both the Cooper framework (Psychological aspects, what people feel) and CANSO elements of safety culture (attitudes towards safety). The implementation of safety behaviors was hindered by the so hierarchy orientation in the ADF military aviation. Such culture with hierarchal decision making process do affect the reporting behaviors of the employees. Mostly the safety culture have a top-down decision making structure where rules and regulations are strictly to be followed18 (Glendon and Stanton 2000) as it was in the case of ADF. Such system do affect the people’s behavior in making decision is case of emergency, as they go for the set rules rather than safety importance. Thus, the priorities are changed with the organizational structure. For strong safety culture there is a need to give priority to the safety issue over all other issues as proposed by CANSO. Recommendations for enhancement of Safety Culture Safety culture enhancement can be done in many ways (Safety Culture Standing Committee 2010)19. There must be a proper review process for the safety culture. The reason for saying it as a process rather than a plan is that it should be assessed on continuous basis. An assessment process should be developed in a way that it must develop the main drivers, measures and evaluative criteria for safety culture and then on these basis, management must evaluate the safety culture in the organization (CANSO 2013). For military aviation organizations where safety culture is much important, there must develop an appropriate mechanism by which it can be assessed. This mechanism must be communicated to all of the organizational members, pilots, crew members, directors etc. High risk organizations where there is higher threats of mishaps related to human damages as well as property damages, such as military aviation, must give priority to the safety above all other things and at all levels. In military aviation organizations, the bottom-up decision making process or the corporate structure should be applied, as there must be empowerment given to employees for breaking any rule for safety related matters. This will be effective for the purpose of enhancing people’s behaviors towards the safety and in turn making the safety culture healthier. The safety culture can be more enhanced by enhancing the reporting culture which will in turn develop the informed and just culture. for this purpose, there is need to apply the framework developed by Cooper, as there must develop people’s behaviors and perceptions, management commitment and actions, as well as the organizational systems and structures in a way which will foster the reporting for any issue related to the safety. Each and every personnel in the organization must be given rewards and recognition for the reporting, and they must not be punished if they have caused this. The success of any organization lies in the four aspects of the culture, and these can also be applied in the safety culture, such as “adaptability, mission, involvement, as well as consistency”. The military organization must be adaptable and flexible in a way that it must accept changes easily, when the changes are required for coping in dynamic environment. So the benchmark safety practices should be adopted. The mission of the military organization must be the safety preference above all and this must be understood by all of employees. Thus, it can be concluded that safety culture is the most significant factor regarding the excellence of the military aviation organizations in Australia. This essay has discussed the safety culture, its important aspects, frameworks for assessing the culture, and the prevalence of safety culture in military aviation in context with the Australia Military Aviation Organization. Recommendations are also made for enhancing the safety culture. References Adeyoyin, Samuel Olu. 2006. "Managing the Librarys Corporate Culture for Organizational Efficiency, Productivity, and Enhanced Service." Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal) 8 (2): 1-12. Australian Defence Force CRM Working Group. 2000. A Summary of the FMAQ Project. Working Paper, Canberra,: Directorate of Flying Safety – ADF. Barney, J. 1991. 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