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Investigations of institutional failure in healthcare typically use staff narratives to identify the cultural factors contributing to the incident. But, to what extent can staff, who are embedded in the culture and who were part of the failing, reflect on and report on the culture? We investigate this by comparing 40 witness statements from staff and 53 witness statements from patients and relatives collected by a public inquiry into a major UK healthcare failure (Clostridium difficile outbreak). Through quantitative text analysis, we found that, while staff and external stakeholders both recognised problems in care, they diverged on the factors considered paramount. Staff emphasised underlying factors such as under‐resourcing and training (causal culture), while patients and relatives emphasised corrective behaviours such as communication for identifying and taking precautions against the spread of C. difficile (corrective culture). The results indicate that patients and relatives may be able to report on cultural factors that staff do not report or are unaware of, thus allowing a more complete analysis. Even in light of an institutional failure, staff may have incomplete accounts of the contributing cultural factors, with implications for learning and postincident improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Measuring organisational culture is important for detecting the values and practices that increase organisational risk (e.g., unethical conduct). Self-report methods (e.g., surveys) are mostly used to study culture: however, due to reporting biases and sampling limitations, and the rapid advance of digital data, researchers have proposed unobtrusive indicators of culture (UICs; e.g., drawn from social media, company reports, executive data) as a supplementary methodology for identifying organisations at risk of failure. A UIC is a single measure of organisational culture drawn from data collected without engaging employees, and research using UICs is in its nascent stage. Although various data sources have been established for studying culture unobtrusively, researchers have yet to explore the application of multiple UICs drawn from different data sources. To investigate this, we developed an experimental battery of 83 UICs drawn from seven data sources (e.g., company earnings calls, employee online reviews, executive data), applying diverse analyses (e.g., natural language processing, quantitative analysis of behavioural data) to measure eight dimensions of culture (e.g., governance, integrity). We then applied the battery to assess 312 large European companies. We found that the UICs could distinguish between companies and different industries, and one dimension (customer focus) was associated with an outcome variable commonly used in culture research (Return on Capital Employed). However, we were not able to establish a coherent set of statistically reliable dimensions due to the clustering of UICs by data source. This clustering likely occurred because data sources reflected the values and practices of different stakeholders (e.g., employees, managers), which underscores a conceptualisation of culture that is focused less on shared values across an institution, and more on the values, priorities, and practices experienced by different sub-groups. Future research could structure UICs according to data sources and apply UICs to examine the causes of organisational failure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We systematically reviewed the literature using unobtrusive measures to study organizational culture. To synthesize, theorize, and evaluate this research, we introduce the concept of an unobtrusive indicator of culture (UIC) for organizations. A UIC measures organizational culture through collecting data without engaging employees, and is conceptualized in terms of cultural artefacts. We identified thirty-five articles, containing 135 distinct UICs, drawn from 16 distinct data sources. UICs coalesced into two groups. First, textual UICs, with culture measured through language patterns in annual reports, employee online reviews, and emails. Second, UICs focusing on organizational practices, for instance, organizational policies or executive rewards. Over two-thirds (68%) of UICs measured values for integrity, results orientation, and clan cultures, and we conjecture that UICs may be most useful for studying aspects of culture sensitive to reporting biases, and benchmarking large samples of organizations. Forty-eight percent of UICs had good or promising construct validity: many were textual UICs, and those focusing on organizational practices were less established. UICs can potentially advance the study of organizational culture, yet must be developed and applied cautiously, with careful consideration of their advantages and limitations, and how they complement existing measurements and conceptualizations of culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-profile failures in financial trading have led to interest in how the culture of the industry produces risky and unethical behaviours among traders. Yet, there is no established theoretical framework for studying this: we apply safety culture theory to examine ten recent high-profile trading mishaps investigated by the UK financial regulator. The results show that the dimensions of safety culture (e.g. Management Commitment to Safety, Systems and procedures) used to understand organisational accidents in domains such as aviation also explain failures in Risk Management within financial trading organisations. This counters narratives focusing on traders who are unethical 'rule breakers', and emphasises the value of a systemic approach, whereby safety culture theory is used to explain why risky behaviours in financial trading occur. Safety culture therefore provides a conceptual basis for further research on risky and unethical behaviours in financial trading, alongside providing insights for possible intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employee safety citizenship behaviors are crucial to risk management in safety-critical industries, and identifying ways to encourage them is a priority. This study examines (i) whether safety citizenship behaviors are a product of social exchanges between employees and organizations, and (ii) the organizational exchanges (i.e. actual activities to support employees) that underlie this relationship. We studied this in the offshore oil and gas industry, and investigated whether organizational activities for supporting workforce health are a signal to employees that the organization supports them, and an antecedent to safety citizenship behaviors. Using questionnaires, we collected data from employees (n = 820) and medics (n = 30) on 22 offshore installations. Multi-level path analysis found that where activities to support workforce health were greater, offshore employees were more likely to perceive their organization to support them, and in turn report more commitment to the organization and safety citizenship behaviors. This indicates safety citizenship behaviors are a product of social exchange, and provides insight on how organizations can influence employee engagement in them. It also suggests social exchange theory as a useful framework for investigating how organizational safety is influenced by workforce relations. We contributed to the social exchange literature through conceptualizing and demonstrating how organizational exchanges lead to reciprocal employee citizenship behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Individuals' propensity for safety citizenship behaviour is related to their understanding of safety culture in the organization. • Identity processes can account for the relationship between safety culture perceptions and safety citizenship behaviour. • Personal identification with the organization and perceptions of others' identification with the organization important for understanding safety culture. • Understanding group-based processes (identification, norms) critical for implementation of safety behaviour interventions. There is considerable overlap between the concepts of culture and social identity. Here, in the context of organisational safety culture, we investigate the extent to which social identity processes can inform our understanding of organisational culture on safety citizenship behaviour. We test this relationship via two different social identity processes: (1) individuals' organisational identity (a classically individual-level conceptualisation of social identity); and (2) individuals' perceptions of others' organisational identities (meta -identity; a social identity framing of culture). Safety culture survey data from 1,427 air traffic workers were analyses using a simple holdout cross-validation approach for model testing. We find that both identity processes mediate the link between safety culture and safety behaviour. The data also demonstrate that the strength of indirect effect of safety culture on safety citizenship via meta -identity is stronger with increasing levels of organisational identity. Moving forward, safety culture research and interventions may benefit from taking a social identity lens to understanding their culture (e.g. developing identity for safety and safe practice), which has implications for safety behaviour. Consideration of meta -identity has implications for behaviour change initiatives, as individuals who perceive strong group commitment in other group members may be more influenced by interventions that leverage group norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we examine the relationship between safety culture and national culture, and the implications of this relationship for international safety culture assessments. Focussing on Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance ( UA) index, a survey study of 13,616 Air Traffic Management employees in 21 European countries found a negative association between safety culture and national norm data for UA. This is theorized to reflect the influence of national tendencies for UA upon attitudes and practices for managing safety (e.g., anxiety on risk; reliance on protocols; concerns over reporting incidents; openness to different perspectives). The relationship between UA and safety culture is likely to have implications for international safety culture assessments. Specifically, benchmarking exercises will consistently indicate safety management within organizations in high UA countries to be poorer than low UA countries due to the influence of national culture upon safety practices, which may limit opportunities for identifying and sharing best practice. We propose the use of safety culture against international group norms ( SIGN) scores to statistically adjust for the influence of UA upon safety culture data, and to support the identification of safety practices effective and particular to low or high UA cultures. Practitioner points National cultural tendencies for uncertainty avoidance (UA) are negatively associated with safety culture., This indicates that employee safety-related attitudes and practices may be influenced by national culture, and thus factors outside the direct control of organizational management., International safety culture assessments should attempt to determine the influence of national culture upon safety culture in order that benchmarking exercises compare aspects of safety management and not national culture., Safety culture against international group norms (SIGN) scores provide a potential way to do this, and can facilitate the identification of best practice within countries operating in a low or high UA cultural cluster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the article, the author calls for papers on the topics of organizational risk and the COVID-19 pandemic, with submission deadline scheduled on February 1, 2022.