Safety Culture and Risk

Author: Andrew Hopkins
Publisher: CCH Australia
ISBN: empty-4028
Published In: December 2004
Format: Paperback
Jurisdiction: Australia ? Disclaimer:
Countri(es) stated herein are used as reference only

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Description
Contents
Author

Details

Safety management in the workplace is an issue of critical importance to business managers as well as those responsible for OHS in any organisation.

However, although the concepts of safety, culture and risk have become increasing matters of concern and are often discussed, they are concepts that are not often clearly understood.

This new book from Professor Andrew Hopkins focuses on these concepts, and deals with the complex issues in a clear, informative style that will both inform organisations and companies, and assist them to be better able to create safe environments for their employees and clients, and to mitigate risk.

Professor Hopkins is a non-technical writer who is able to communicate clearly with non-specialists about quite complex ideas. The book will assist organisations to be able to create safe environments for their employees and clients, and to mitigate risk. Value propositions:· The concepts of safety culture and risk are widely talked about but poorly understood. · People often use the concept of safety culture without having much idea of what it means or how it can be achieved.· Safety culture and risk are often written about in a technical way that puts people off.

Contents Includes:

The first three parts of the book advocate the development of risk-awareness.

Part 1 is a general discussion of organisational culture.

Part 2 is an empirical investigation of how organisational culture affects safety, using the Glenbrook train crash as a case study.

Part 3 is a second case study of how organisational culture interfered with safety.

Part 4 is an extended discussion of the concept of risk, dealing with issues such as the assumption that risk can be objectively measured; the current view that risk is a product of likelihood and severity; the conflict between “acceptable risk” and “as low as reasonably practical” ; the tendency of risk management to become risk spreading rather than risk reduction; and the confusion between risk and hazard.

Professor Andrew Hopkins is highly regarded as a commentator on risk analysis. He is Associate Professor of Sociology at the Australian National University in Canberra. He was an expert witness at the Royal Commission into the causes of the fire at Esso’s gas plant at Longford in Victoria in 1998. In 2001 he was the expert member of a Board of Inquiry into the poisoning of F111 maintenance workers at Amberley Air Force base in Queensland. He has recently been working with the Defence Science and Technology Organisation in Melbourne to develop a method for analysing air craft crashes, with a view to identifying the most useful recommendations.He teaches courses on criminology and the sociology of disasters.