Organisational culture concept

Patient safety culture is a reasonably new development of the organisational safety culture constmct. As with other types of culture, the addition patient safety serves as a qualifler for the general concept of organisational culture. By using this qualifier the proposition is made that an organisational culture can be conducive, or uirfavourable, to patient safety. 

A set of publications (Schulte et al. 2003, Sherehiy et al. 2006) indicates that in order to improve the management of OH S system there is a need to develop principles and tools of KM in the area of application at the organisational level. Even though rapid improvement has been made in the field of OH S in Estonia in recent years, there are still challenges ahead. The process of KM in the field of OH S at the state level and major problems were identified and several possibilities for improvements in Estonia were discussed by some researchers (Lehtinen 2004, Kurrpa et al. 2004, Martimo 2004, Kempinen et al. 2004, Jarvis et al. 2007, Reinhold et al. 2009). The contribution of the present paper consists of the presented modified Cooper s Model of Safety Culture with concept of KM. Our discussion of the current OH S system and employers cooperation with OPs is based on descriptive data from interviews with managers and on the... 

In the next section, the concept of culture applied to organisations will be explored in more detail. 

Summarising the various concepts and definitions proposed, safety culture appears to be the broader, manifest concept behind the fiamewoik of safety climate. Safety cultme is the source for patterns of behaviour which can be observed, described and changed (Goodmaim 2004), whereas safely climate is the sum of behaviours and attitudes based on common assumptions and beliefs toward patient safety. Cox and Flin (1998) describe culture as an organisation s personality while climate is seen as the organisation s mood . 

Schein H (1996) Culture the missing concept in organisation studies. Adm Sci Quart 41... 

In 1999 A joint Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and oil industry-funded project to address some of these concerns led to the development of a Safety Culture Maturity Model (SCMM) (see for example Lardner, Fleming and Joyner (2001). The SCMM is based on the capability maturity model concept, initially developed by the Software Engineering Institute of CarnegieMellon University (Paulk et al, 1993), as a mechanism to improve the way software is built and maintained. The SCMM aims to assist organisations in (a) establishing their current level of safety culture maturity and (b) identifying the actions required to improve their safety culture. 

The safety culture of an organisation is a concept that describes the attitudes and beliefs of an organisation in terms of its safety performance. It must be recognised that the so-called safety culture within which a company operates is driven by the pervading culture within the wider organisation. The safety culture will impact upon the effectiveness of all safety functions including the management of fire safety matters. 

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