Occupational Health and Safety Culture

Literature Review

Recent Western literature emphasizes occupational safety concerns for workers in countries like the UK (Tharaldsen et al., 2010; Kane, 2010), the US, and other European nations (Mearns and Yule, 2009). In contrast, literature addressing workers' safety issues in third-world Asian countries is scarce (Ali et al., 2009; Khdair et al., 2011). The available literature primarily analyzes internal and external factors influencing the establishment of a safety culture in the workplace. This section of the paper will critically review the literature on the occupational health and safety of the oil and gas industry, particularly in developing countries like Iraq. The insights gained from this review will contribute to a comprehensive understanding of safety systems, best practices, and relevant legislation, forming the foundation for subsequent sections of this paper.

• Safety Culture – Definition and Context

Safety culture in an organization is important to manage occupational hazards and safety issues for workers and equipment. According to Sukadarin et al. 2012, safety culture is a viable method for directing workers' beliefs, approaches, and performances regarding organizational safety. Another definition by Ritcher and Koch (2004) stated that the safety culture is the collective and knowledgeable implication, experiences and understanding of job and safety and includes peoples’ guidance. This culture also includes shared values and beliefs which interact with an organisation's structure and control systems to yield social standards (Fitzgerald, 2005). As per Terry (2003), there are three causes of UN safe behaviour at work: (1) physical surroundings, (2) the social setting and (3) the experience of an employee within these. In the meantime, the safety triangle demonstrates the link between an unsafe working environment and damages, affecting any industry's safety situation. Safety not only endeavours to focus on bottom employees, but it also impacts the degree of responsibility of higher authorities, such as managers, to ensure safety at the workplace.

Developing a culture of safety in acknowledgement of the dispositions and practices of workers is the most important motivational element, and it provides the basics to workers’ state of mind and their conduct at work. As indicated by the European Process Safety Center (1994), legislative issues, association, administration hones, systems, and observing and reviewing activities are the imperative components incorporated in the basic well-being of administration. Vredenburgh (2002), in a study, indicated that to make a safety culture in the organization, numerous administration practices must be considered. These administration practices comprise training, assessments, and various administration obligations. From the literature published in the last many years, experts have indicated that these administrative practices influence safety performance.

• Theoretical Framework of Occupational Risk Management

Agency theory holds risk management in large industries, such as oil and gas, to be a conflict of interest between shareholder interests and management practices (Vredenburgh, 2002). Like other industries, consumer trust is also important in the oil and gas industry; however, this trust is affected by financial and corporate risks, such as project cost overruns, as they lead to an increase in expected costs.  Furthermore, the stakeholder's theory also provides a rationale for the control of risk management (RM). In this regard, the map proposed by Hall (1997) to control and manage risk is still applicable in the oil and gas industry. The stages described in the model presented by Hall (1997) are:

Table 1: Risk Stages and Descriptions (Source: Hall, 1997)

The above model was argued by Petts (1998), who added a communication and monitoring stage to the above-mentioned stages.  Furthermore, Shrivastava (1995) argued that the incidents and hazards in the oil and gas sector should also be treated through risk management procedures. Shrivastava (1995) proposed two alternatives in this risk management sector: industrial ecosystems consider harmful by-products of operations as potentially useful input products and eco-centric administration focuses on better organization alignment with the natural environment.

• Occupational Safety and Health Performances (OSHAPM)

As indicated by Khdairet al(2011), Safety requires a huge measure of effort to be employed within a workplace because it’s a difficult and problematic phenomenon. Therefore, it is very challenging to achieve safety performance across the industry. It is a delicate and difficult approach to deal with safety performance because there is a risk to the lives of people working at the place and the person supervising the system. Financial losses are the second reason why implementing an operative management system for health and safety is crucial (Bakri et al., 2006).

• Safety Standardization- OHSAS-18001

A well-being and safety management system recognized to deal with work-related safety and well-being issues, known as the Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series (OHSAS-18001), is a worldwide acknowledged standard for organizational safety usually challenged by employees at the workplace (Zeng et al. 2010). The OHSAS structure is an inclusive certification, which can be transformed and modified according to organizational needs, business or specific desires of regions (Remmen et al. 2005). It consists of an agenda that spots, alleviates and diminishes the dangers associated with workplace health and safety. OHSAS implies specifications for well-being and management methods for safety at the organization, for facilitating a service provider in limiting safety issues and enhancing the effectiveness of the work. It does not give comprehensive necessities for designing the management method or specify the efficiency standards. Alternatively, it is used to experiment with the administration's approach to safety, assess the effectiveness of workplace safety, and ensure that the administration process meets legal and coverage requirements. As Zeng et al. (2010) indicated, the Management system should be validated in step with the directions of the recognized normal, and it can be carried out with OHSAS-18001. The major reason behind using it is that it cuts down on the safety issues and risks associated with the workplace, which enriches the manufacturer's productivity and reduces production costs (Singh, 2009).

As indicated by Philips et al. (2003), thirteen major commerce bodies, accreditation councils and worldwide requisites had headquartered this system to support a gap where no independent body certifiable specification endures. Around 25,000 corporations of eighty-two international locations were certified to OHSAS by 2006. This approach empowers companies to admire their hazards, verify the loopholes of their management procedure, and confirm those dangers that aren't tolerable and need to be delimited (Smith, 2008). Rather than being reactive, this process is proactive, as it is in a position of assessing danger and analysing hazards previous to the prevalence of any mishap. Inspectors advocate control measures after assessing dangers. These control measures can be either technical or administrative, or both. For this method, thorough identification of dangers and evaluation of the likelihood of expertise harm prevalence are fundamentals.

• Factors Affecting Occupational Hazards

Workplace safety is a difficult phenomenon; therefore, numerous explanations influence safety performance, and safety efficiency is even more difficult to understand in the oil and gas industry. Given below are the various causes that affect safety performance. These causes are human factors, economic elements, behaviours, psychological explanations, organizational reasons, character and social, and environmental elements. These factors are discussed below.

• Human Factors

According to Bellamy et al. (2008), the ‘human factor’ impact is considered versatile and complex, influencing safety measures, organizational discipline, working environments, and many different safety culture characteristics. In the oil and gas sector, management and staff reliance on worker safety is still not achieved, as professional advancement with time showed behavioural differences in crises (Subramaniam 2004). Behaviour factors can influence safety, especially concerning workers' group involvement in complex and regular tasks. Cox et al. (2004) discussed that safety-oriented programs encourage workers to change their behaviour and attitude to pursue safe actions (Sawacha et al. 1999). Another important contribution was the psychological factor, which showed a major relationship with the safety performance of employees (Cigularov et al. 2010). The other important factors are organizational and economic factors responsible for designing and implementing employment and hiring policies.

• Behavioural Factors

The impact of behavioural factors on employee safety and security refers to the constraints in behaviour that obstruct employee motivation and security-culture development. According to Cox et al. (2004), assessment of behaviour factors assists in understanding the employee's behaviour that may lead to any accident, rather than relying only on the hazardous perspective of the activities/processes. Hence, reducing the behaviours associated with risks such as mishandling, carelessness, and/or inappropriate working modes can help reduce the chances of occupational accidents and security failures. As Krause and Russell (1994) discussed, the employees’ riskier conduct has been found in most safety risk situations that affect those at that place. In another study, Krause and Russell (1999) stated that behaviour-based workplace security problems mostly occur in the presence of a group of people when human interactions create malfunctioning conflicts and disputes. These researches further suggested that proper risk behaviour training for workers can facilitate the reduction of such risks.

• Organizational Factors

In the context of safety enactment, the organizational factors are the aspects giving rise to mishaps. The previous research discovered the link between workplace safety, workers' behaviour and the safety consequences. These may include incidents, damages, and misfortunes (Reid et al 2008). Additionally, Remmen et al. (2005) argued that several occupational factors can influence the prediction of organizational safety; past research has focused on the elements that can avoid possible accidents. Alternatively, Vredenburgh (2002) asserted that external factors such as financial factors, socio-technical situations, and general culture influence organizational factors. As a result, in different geographical locations, the occupational factors differ in creating distinct effects on safety performance. In this aspect, Tharaldsen et al. (2010) declared that production firms are assisting foreign companies in their business programs in the recent era of globalisation. These firms should efficiently deliberate the transformation of organizational characteristics and their encouragement mechanisms for safety enactment in different states.

• Economic Factors

However, the financial justifications are foremost and significantly contribute to safety performance. The financial cause offers a period of financial values related to protection equivalent to hazard pay. Osha (2012) stated that compensation based on the accident is important. In most instances, cash cannot compensate for the life of any worker who misplaced his life but can best quickly remedy the ache of one who had lost one. Also, Vinodkumar, MN, & Bhasin (2010) asserted that the economic factor might differ from company to organization and depends on organizational policies. The economic component can also fortify occupational security by supplying the right equipment and other critical safety prevention tools. Worker psychology is a colossal factor in making contributions to safety efficiency. It is famous for Crocker (1995), who observed that the worker's safety depends upon his physiological state, and he concluded that workers can work more safely with someone who respects their staff and their contribution and who is stimulated using a targeted enterprise policy on safety. When employees work safely, they can also expect operatives to react positively.

• Safety Performance at Workplace

In a review of previous studies by Broadbent (2004), Lu and Yang (2010), and Vinodkumar and Bhasi (2010), it is discovered that safety participation and safety behaviour compliance are two important dimensions in measuring safety performance at the workplace. Also, the study of Griffin and Neal (2000) already explained these two factors in Australian industrial sector research. The results of these studies confirmed that both workers' and management's positive safety compliance and safety participation play a vital role in establishing a safety culture and influencing safety performance with moderators as safety knowledge. Furthermore, the studies of Cabrera et al. (2007) and Ali et al. (2009) elaborated that management practices are important in preventing occupational accidents and are useful elements in controlling and taking precautionary measures to avoid workplace accidents. Additionally, Geldart et al.'s (2010) study on workplace safety measures and the role of management practices in various industries suggested that administrative policies, management practices, and employees’ attitudes positively impact workplace safety.

Managing Safety behaviour in an operative organization and its control are handled under organizational factors. Exercises for managing safety are very significant to attain high-valued organisational performance. From the business perspective, the term safety performance is indicated as the capability of tackling the risks in the organization to evade mishaps and damages (Jiang et al. 2010). The organizational and management factors define the measure of success of safety performance within the organization. Safety self-efficacy, the sentience of safety, and safety behaviour are the three integrated factors in individual safety. Self-efficacy can be defined as the belief of Employees in their training competence. This affects safety control perceived by the worker, a facilitator role in a safe environment and self-reported accidents.

However, the safety consciousness replicates the risk issue in the working environment. Safety behaviour can be defined as the employee's risk-taking performance and acquiescence to safety procedures and rules. As Neal and Griffin (2002) discussed, safety behaviours in an organization are influenced by organizational factors (like understanding management and diligence) and appraised by employee compliance and contribution. The safety risk dealing with hazardous and safe practices relies on upon the subjective inclinations connected with the safety of workers who are confronting dangers, predisposition in the view of safety risk which happens in a rational; however, this is an impractical assessment of risk, which causes a higher level of danger as a consequence.

• Role of Management Practices

To avert workplace hazards, practices for managing risks are expected to work, which deals with controlling the working environment mishaps. Fundamentally, session-based management practices have been established by some authors, Ali et al. (2009), and their study indicated that workplace accidents and damages are affected by management practices, and management practices can also diminish these accidents. Geldart et al. (2010) researched workplace well-being, organizational practices, and safety. The study included 312 employees from Canadian industrial organizations (Geldart et al., 2010). The study discovered that managerial policies, behaviours, and practices directly influence employee safety in the workplace. It was also found that managers and more skilled and experienced workers have fewer encounters with accidents and injuries. The official policies and rules can reduce the rate of injuries and accidents by allowing them to participate in discussions, inspiring them to consider the necessities of safety, and giving rewards and incentives. The administrative practices are briefly defined below:

• Training of Employees

Training of workers assumes the most significant part in disclosing administration practices to enhance safety execution. Workers make choices in light of safety concerns; the entire association is not practising these choices as these insurances are structured for workers instead of administration (Ali et al., 2009). As the administration has not upheld the safety code of standards and regulations, there is nearly less effect on the workers. Their discoveries additionally propose that inadequate workers’ safety training is ineffective in reducing mishaps and wounds (Cabrera et al. 2007).

Training of workers lessens, holds risks, and enhances the ability to handle safety issues. Training workers and safety relies on the level of danger brought about, and notices and circumspectly assume a critical part in keeping from those perils [59]. Vredenburgh and Cohen (1995) suggested that the level of observed risk expands the consistency of notices and directions; in this way, it is important to prepare the whole workforce to distinguish and respond to the dangers related to their working environment. With the assistance of software engineers, the association can set and accomplish objectives, develop and change, and enhance specialized and proficient abilities. With the assistance of worker training, the workers get educated about adherence to safety standards and techniques, and in the meantime, identify training of workers' needs, create changes in work strategies, and reconsider work objectives to make the work more secure.

• Motivational Rewards and Incentives

Hazards at the workplace can also be reduced by giving inducements and rewards to employees who motivate them to avoid risks. The way workers behave with their inspiration is how rewards lead to craved results. Workers need to move as the social standards indicate to produce the desired result. The culture and practices of the reward system are found through actions and results. The hierarchical culture happens in a workplace with various lines and strengthening operators; changing an association draws in to recognize the different fortifying gentlemen with a specific end goal to decide their impacts on the change process (Thompson and Luthans, 1990).

Then again, the motivating force project based on a reward system reinforces the reporting of mishaps and any dangerous demonstration prompting a mischance. The employee motivating projects need to be an arrangement of packages that can be employed parallel to their safety and training. It is important to include precision of mishaps in the organization in place of giving retribution after the occurrence of accidents. Though informational opinion, self-assessment and social elements play an important role in motivating employees, these may include praise acknowledgement and perceptible highlights, for example, compensating through bonuses and trading stamps. In their study, Fernaud & D´ıaz (2007) and Bentley and Haslam (2001) indicate motivational outlines used in organizations to apply fundamental rewards and remunerations associated with jobs and extrinsic rewards. These outlines are associated with collective recognition and economic remunerations.