Safety Science 57 (2013) 326–334

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Safety Scien ce

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From the surface to the underlying meaning-an analysis of senior managers’safety culture perceptions

L.S. Fruhen a,⇑, K.J. Mearns a,1, R.H. Flin a, B. Kirwan b

a University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom b EUROCONTROL, Paris, France

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history:Received 28 September 2011 Received in revised form 3 December 2012 Accepted 7 March 2013 Available online 15 April 2013

Keywords:Safety culture Senior managers ContentArtefactsLeximancer

0925-7535/$ - see front matter � 2013 Elsevier Ltd. Ahttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2013.03.006

⇑ Corresponding author. Address: School of PsycAberdeen AB24 2UB, United Kingdom. Tel.: +44 1273426.

E-mail address: l.fruhen@abdn.ac.uk (L.S. Fruhen).1 Present address: Human Factors Specialist Inspe

Hazardous Installations Directorate, Health and Safety Fraser Place, Aberdeen, AB25 3UB, United Kingdom.

Senior managers can influence safety culture and it is therefore important to understand how they think about this aspect of their organis ation. Examining senior managers’ interpretations of safety culture (viacontent and artefacts like language), is one way to address this issue. Safety culture descriptions obtained through interviews with senior managers (N = 8) from two air traffic management organisations in Europe were subjected to content analysis based on Reason’s (1997) safety culture model and linguistic analysis (using Leximancer). The content analysis indicated ‘just culture’ as a dominant theme in senior managers’ thinking about safety culture. Close links between the linguistic themes ‘people’ and ‘safety’were found in both organisations. Senior managers from Organisation 1 viewed ‘management’ as crucial for safety culture and the linguistic analysis suggested flatter hierarchies and communication might facil- itate their approach. Organisatio n 2 was characterised by a focus on ‘reporting culture’, ‘performance’,‘data’ and ‘accountability’. The findings of the two complementary methods of analysis illustrated how the conscious, as well as the subconscious, levels of understanding safety culture might be related . Organ- isations may benefit from an investigation of their leaders’ safety culture views through linguistic anal- ysis, in addition to questionnaires and other measures.

� 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Reviews of the safety climate literature by Flin et al. (2000) andGuldenmund (2007) identify ‘management’ and their attitudes and behaviours as a key safety climate factor. Furthermore, two meta- analyses (Beus et al., 2010; Christian et al., 2009 ) found manage- ment commitmen t to be one of the most influential safety climate factors in relation to safety behaviours and injury rates in organi- sations. Industries and regulators in domains such as oil and gas,aviation, railways, and the maritime sector have recognised the importance of senior managers for safety. The present research is set in a highly reliable industry, air traffic managemen t (ATM)which delivers the managemen t of air traffic to most users of the airspace. Their services contribute to the excellent safety record of aviation (UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), accessed August 2009). It should be noted that ATM activities concern operation al and organisation al safety, rather than occupationa l, or personal

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hology, King’s College, Old 224 273210; fax: +44 1224

ctor at the Energy Division,Executive, Lord Cullen House,

safety, because air traffic controllers’ workplaces are not inherentl ydangerous . Rather, air traffic controlle rs manage the risks to which others are exposed and their work can involve trade-off decisions between efficiency of traffic throughput and safety. Despite its excellent safety record, European ATM suffered a major accident (mid-air collision) near Ueberlingen in 2002. The investigation of this accident also highlight s the influential role of senior managers in achieving safe ATM operations: ‘‘[ . . .], managers can change and improve existing corporate culture by establishing safety – recog- nisable for all staff members – as high priority. Feedback and con- tinual reinforcement from the most senior managemen t down will help develop dedication and accountabil ity that is desirable .’’(p. 90, German Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Investigation,2004).

Although identified as highly relevant for organisat ional safety,the mechanisms of senior managers’ influence on safety are not fully understood (Flin et al., 2000 ). It has been argued that commu- nication about safety, especially regarding safety values, is an important way for senior managers to convey their safety commit- ment (e.g. Neal and Griffin, 2004; Hopkins, 2011; HSE, 2007 ). The aim of this study is to investigate how senior managers from two different ATM organisations think about their organisations’ safety culture. It is proposed that this group’s thinking about safety cul- ture will be reflected in the content, as well as the language, which they use to describe this attribute of their organisation.

L.S. Fruhen et al. / Safety Science 57 (2013) 326–334 327

Because senior managers have been identified as crucially influ-encing organisation al safety, understand ing their way of thinking and communi cating about safety culture is highly relevant. Schein(2004) describes leaders as exerting a powerful influence on organ- isational culture and suggested that ‘‘what they value as important is what they systematical ly pay attention to’’ (p. 246). The way se- nior managers describe safety culture is likely to give an indication of not only the way they think about safety culture, but also of the issues they focus on when they attempt to shape their organisa- tion’s safety culture (Schein, 2004 ) from their influential positions.This influence is likely to be exerted at a conscious level, reflectedin the content of senior managers ’ statements when talking about safety culture. Furthermore, as culture is described as a largely unconscious organisation al attribute, it can be proposed that amore complete understand ing of the ways in which senior manag- ers conceptualis e safety culture can be achieved by consideri ng underlying aspects of their descriptions. Consideration of the unconscious levels of culture may be one approach to distingui sh- ing deeper features of the culture from the surface aspects of organisation al climate (Reichers and Schneider, 1990 ).

1.1. Investigating perspecti ves on organisat ional safety culture – not climate

The concepts of culture and climate are acknowled ged in the organisation al literature as having a considerable overlap, yet the distinction between the two concepts is described as relevant for a thorough understa nding of the sense making that takes place in organisation s. Generally, the distinction between the concepts is rooted in how deeply they reside within organisation s. Reichersand Schneider (1990) suggest that culture is a set of meanings that is rooted in the deeper consciousness of organisat ions, whereas they view climate as a manifestation of culture that provides asnapshot of the underlyin g assumptions which form a culture.Similar to the general climate and culture literature, the safety spe- cific literature emphasises this distinction between safety culture and safety climate, however the terms are often used interchange -ably (Guldenm und, 2000 ). Safety culture is conceptu alized by Coxand Flin (1998) as a meaning system which indicates to the work- force what is important and legitimate for their actions in relation to safety culture. In his developmen t of the safety climate concept,Zohar (1980) describes climate as sets of organizational percep- tions that are shared and summari zed by the organisation’s mem- bers. Like the relation between general culture and climate, safety culture is described as manifesting itself through organisational climate (Guldenm und, 2000 ). Both concepts, safety culture and safety climate, are acknowledged as key predictor s of organisa- tional safety outcomes. Prior research indicates that well estab- lished safety climates and cultures are related to better safety performanc e indicated by criterion measures such as occupationa laccidents, safety compliance , injuries, or safety participa tion (e.g.Clarke, 2006 ), higher safety motivatio n (Neal and Griffin, 2006;Griffin and Neal, 2000 ) and lower underreporti ng rates of injuries (Probst et al., 2008 ).

Although safety culture and safety climate are described in the literature as qualitatively different, this is not necessar ily reflectedin the way they are assessed . The unconscious or underlying as- pects are crucial for our understand ing of organisational culture (e.g. Rousseau, 1990 ) and for its distinction from the concept of cli- mate (e.g. Schein, 2004 ). Because culture focuses on the ‘‘deepest ,often unconscious part of a group’’ (Schein, 2004, p. 14 ), it is de- scribed as less tangible than other aspects of organisations, sug- gesting it is difficult to access and to measure. The safety culture literature acknowledges that the majority of studies rely on ques- tionnaires (Guldenmund, 2007 ). This approach is described as not providing sufficient access to underlying aspects of safety culture

and as more likely to capture the climate of organisation s (Flinet al., 2000; Guldenmund , 2007 ). Furthermore, Reichers and Schneider (1990) describe the mere reliance on surveys as an ‘‘insufficient source of information about the inner workings of an organisat ion’’ (p. 27). This suggests an investigatio n into the deeper, often unconscious aspect of organisation al culture might require research methods that more directly relate to such inner workings.

Schein (2004) suggests a focus on cultural artefacts as suitable for gaining access to the deeper levels of culture. Nevertheles s,the qualitative empirical insights based on cultural artefacts are still rather limited, as they generally pose higher constraints in terms of the time required to collect and analyse the data and alimited suitability for publication (Reichers and Schneider,1990). The aim of this study is to investiga te the ways in which senior managers describe safety culture by accountin g for the two levels of culture: the content on the surface, as well as the underlyin g meaning. Language was evaluated as a suitable access point to the underlyin g meaning of culture, as it has been pro- posed by Schein (2004) as an artefact of culture. It can be pro- posed that linguistic analysis, in addition to content analysis,might identify issues that are beyond the senior managers’espoused beliefs.

1.1.1. Language and culture According to Schein’s model of organisat ional culture (2004),

artefacts are the visible aspects of an organisat ion such as its tech- nology and products, its language, myths and stories. These are de- scribed as manifestatio ns of espoused beliefs and values as well as unconscious assumptions of the members of an organisation . Pop-ping (2000) defines language as symbolic behaviour which trans- mits values, norms and meaning. It should be noted that language is not only proposed as facilitating the understand ing of culture, it is also described as promoting the developmen t of cul- tural rules for perceiving, believing and acting in organisations (Ouchi and Wilkins, 1985 ).

Accordingly , language is suggested to be not only an artefact of culture, but also as a ‘tool’ through which culture can be influ-enced. In line with this, we focus our investigatio n on the language of a group who are described as critical for the developmen t of safety culture. The role of language has been highlighted as espe- cially suitable for the study of leadership by Pondy (1978) whosuggests leadership is a language game. He describes the leader’s success in this game as depending on the extent to which he or she is able to give meaning and identity to an organisat ion by cre- ating words that promote sense making of collective experiences .Accordingly , senior managers can be viewed as sense-mak ers of safety culture.

More recently, the safety culture literature has begun to ex- plore possible ways of investiga ting artefacts of culture. To our knowled ge, only one study exists in the safety culture literature that explicitly studies a particular safety culture artefact: Luriaand Rafaeli (2008) study safety signs as an artefact suitable to gain access to underlyin g assumptions and found that employees interpreted these signs with a deeper meaning rather than their functiona l meaning, i.e. a ‘‘wear your safety gear’’ sign was evalu- ated by workers as indicating an interest of the management in worker safety in general rather than the managemen t using the sign as purely a function to increase worker compliance with safety equipment. Additionally, a study by Colley and Neal (2012) has investigated safety schema of different individuals in organisat ions (workers, supervisors and managers) through lin- guistic analysis. However , it should be noted that their study was not directly concerne d with safety culture and language as an artefact of organisational culture, but rather organisation al safety more generally.

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Reason’s (1997) safety culture model was chosen as the theoret- ical conceptualis ation of safety culture for the present study. He proposed that safety culture in organisation s consists of the follow- ing elements:

� Informed culture: the organisation has a safety information sys- tem that collects, analyses and disseminate s information from incidents and near misses, as well as from regular proactive checks on the system.� Reporting culture: organisational members are prepared to

report their errors, mistakes and near-mis ses.� Just culture: an atmosphere of trust where people are encour-

aged and even rewarded to provide essential safety-rel ated information , but also in which it is clear where the line between acceptable and unaccept able behaviou r is drawn.� Flexible culture: adaptability in terms of an ability to reconfig-

ure the organisational structure in the face of a dynamic and demanding task environment.� Learning culture: the willingnes s and competence to draw the

right conclusions from safety system, and the willingnes s to implement reform when required.

This safety culture model is described as consideri ng the psy- chological, behavioural and situation al aspects of safety culture (Cooper, 2000 ). Reason proposes that these elements of safety cul- ture drive safety improvements in organisations. The model has been applied in previous research as a framework for investigatin gsafety culture (e.g. Parker et al., 2006 ) and is well accepted. The present study explored whether senior managers refer to these ele- ments when describing safety culture and examine d the language they use when describing this aspects of their organisation . Their statements are interpreted as providing insights into their way of thinking about safety culture, reflecting their underlying attitudes which inform their actions in relation to safety. This was investi- gated by comparing safety culture descriptions of senior managers from two ATM organisations.

2. Method

2.1. Sample

The sample consisted of senior managers (N = 8, response rate = 81%) from two European Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs). Participants were in the positions of chief executive offi-cer (n = 2), chief operating officer (n = 3), director of safety (n = 2)and director of air navigation services (n = 1), with all being mem- bers of the executive teams of their organisation s. Average time in position of participa nts was 29.4 months (SD = 17.5, range 11–66 months). Participants had a variety of backgrounds including experience in military, ATM, the energy industry and transporta- tion, and seven held degrees in business, engineeri ng or human factors.

2.2. Procedures

Individual interview s were carried out on site by two interview- ers who were psychologis ts. As part of a semi structured interview schedule, the responses analysed in this study relate to two ques- tions: What are the main ingredients (or components ) of the safety culture of your ANSP? What would you do to improve the safety cul- ture of your ANSP? These questions were asked, to ensure partici- pants would not only talk about the positive aspects of their organisation s’ safety culture, but also about aspects they evaluate as improvable. By doing so, we endeavoure d to obtain a more com- plete description of safety culture perceptions from participants.Participants’ responses were transcribed verbatim.

2.3. Analysis

Two types of analysis were used: content analysis and linguistic analysis. Content analysis was carried out deductively following the guidelines by Mayring (2000). Accordingl y, responses were allocated into Reason’s safety culture elements whenever possible and the remaining responses were considered as reflecting addi- tional aspects of safety culture that are not included in the original model. Two independen t raters were provided with explicit defini-tions and coding rules in a coding scheme (Dey, 1993 ). Interrater reliability of the coding was tested with Krippendorf f’s alpha, using a PSAW-matr ix by Hayes and Krippendorf f (2007) and achieved asufficient interrater agreement of a = 0.81 (95% CI 0.69–0.90).These practices ensured that confident conclusions could be drawn from the material (Armstron g et al., 1997 ).

The linguistic analysis of the transcripts was carried out using the text analysis tool Leximanc er (Smith, 2003; Smith and Humphre ys, 2006 ). Previously, Travaglia et al. (2009) applied Lex- imancer in a safety–critical profession (health care), to analyse differenc es between perceptions of an incident reporting system from doctors, nurses and allied health professional s. More recently, Colley and Neal (2012) applied Leximanc er to compare the safety schema of workers, supervisors and managemen t.Leximanc er carries out a ‘‘corpus analysis’’ of a given set of infor- mation by identifying the main concepts in a text corpus (seman-tic extractio n) and how these relate to each other (relational extractio n). Leximanc er conducts its analysis in three steps: First,it identifies frequently occurring concepts. These are weighted term classifiers developed through an iterative process in which the program applies Bayesian principles. Second, Leximancer analyses the concepts’ co-occurr ence using a Bayesian approach.This results in an asymmetric co-occurrence matrix. In the finalstep of the analysis, the program derives themes by allocating concepts around a highly connected concept in each area. The concept with the highest connectivity in each of these themes names the theme as a parent concept. Analysin g the data using the Leximancer software has the following advantag es over more traditional thematic analysis: The program analyses the data unsuperv ised, therefore provides results which do not suffer from subjectiv ity and is described as reliable (Smith and Humphreys,2006). Furthermore, the outputs obtained not only indicate the frequenc y of the emerging concepts, but also groups them into themes and indicates their connectivity.

In line with guidance in the Leximanc er manual (2010), con- cepts that emerged during the analysis that had little semantic meaning were excluded from the analysis (at stage 1 of the analy- sis). First, utterances such as ‘ahem’, and ‘ah’ were removed from the concept seed list, as these are filling sounds that do not convey relevant meaning for the type of analysis carried out. Secondly, all themes’ contents were inspected to evaluate to what extent they conveyed relevant meaning by looking through the text excerpts that Leximancer has identified as reflecting these themes. Accord- ing to this procedure, the concept seed ‘things’ and ‘means’ were excluded from the analysis. The excerpts subsumed under these themes indicated that the terms were used interchange ably by participa nts to describe several issues. Therefore, their inclusion was evaluated as likely to overshadow the actual meaning con- veyed in these excerpts.

3. Results

3.1. Findings from the content analysis

The frequenc y with which Reason’s safety culture components were referred to in the responses from senior managers is viewed as reflecting their relevance and salience in this group’s thinking

Table 1Results of content analysis.

Theme Organisation 1 Organisation 2 Overall

Frequency

Informed culture 2 2 4Reporting culture 2 11 13 Just culture 9 12 21 Flexible culture 3 1 4Learning culture 2 1 3Management/ Leadership 8 2 10

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about safety culture (based on Namey et al., 2007 ). Table 1 showsthat the content identified by both coders as meaningful in the re- sponses addressed all five dimensions from Reason’s safety culture model. Across the two organisations, the cultural aspect of ‘just culture’ (f = 21) was most frequently identified, followed by ‘reporting culture’ (f = 13). Overall, the aspects ‘informed culture’(f = 4), ‘flexible culture’ (f = 4) and ‘learning culture’ (f = 3) were not indicated frequent ly in the content of senior managers’ re- sponses from the two organisation s. Additionally to Reason’s safety culture dimensions , the coders identified content that reflected as- pects of management or leadershi p in the responses, with a rela- tively high frequency (f = 10).

Content referring to just culture was identified with a similar frequency in the responses from both organisation s. These re- sponses reflected aspects of trust, as well as a distinction between acceptable and unacceptabl e behaviour. An example response from Organisation 1 emphasises the role of the managers themselv es in creating that culture of trust: ‘‘I think it is possibly one of the most important functions that I have that they can trust me that they can tell me something ’’. Whereas the following example response from Organisation 2 highlights the trust that the management displays towards the members of the organisation : ‘‘We have a belief that our people know the answers. It is a key belief. And it is encouraging them to unlock that information those ideas in order to make pro- gress’’. The distinction between acceptable and unacceptabl ebehaviour as an element of a just culture is directly described in this quote from Organisation 1: ‘‘An organisation al culture that is very clear about what is accepted behaviour and what is not accepted behaviour has influenced everybody, so everybody respects this now ’’.A senior manager from Organisati on 2 described this issue through the phrase of drawing a line: ‘‘People who are either negligent, or unprofession al, where it is not that they have made a mistake. It is where we make sure that people are clear about where that line is ’’.

Next to this common focus on ‘just culture’ in the responses from the two organisation s, the content analysis also revealed dif- ferences between the two groups of senior managers. Content identified as ‘management’ or ‘leadership’ was predominantly

Table 2Themes and concepts identified through linguistic analysis.

Organisation 1 Organisation 2

Themes Connectivity (%)

Concepts Themes Conn(%)

Safety 100 Safety, culture, people, talk People 100

Management 51 Management, important,started, top

Culture 19

Operational 38 Discussions, directly,controllers, issues

Performance 9

Units 10 Units, competence Data 5Organisation 7 Organisation, wanted, whole Capability 2Use 4 Use Leadership 2Time 4 Time Leaders 2Results 3 Results Build 2 Build

found in responses of senior managers from Organisation 1(f = 8). The following quote reflects the importance of managemen tsincerity when it comes to safety and acknowledge the impact of their own actions on organisational members: ‘‘On the units they feel that managemen t actually mean that safety is important, that they don’t just say it.’’ The next quote highlight s this aspect further and transmits a sense of responsibility: ‘‘And I myself, I am, this is somethin g I have brought with me, in my different jobs. If you don’t practise, what you say and what you have in nice policies, you can’t expect that employee s are doing actually what they are told to do and what the procedures say’’.

For Organisati on 2, a focus on ‘reporting culture’ was identified(f = 11), which was not as frequently referred to by senior manag- ers from Organisation 1 (f = 2). In the following quote from Organi- sation2, the importance of learning from errors through reporting is emphasised ‘‘we do expect normal human beings to make mistakes and it is only through reporting them that we can learn and improve’’and the role of an open culture to promote such reporting is high- lighted in the following ‘‘I think it is very open so kind of open culture in terms of open reporting’’.

3.2. Findings from the linguistic analysis

Table 2 gives an overview of the themes identified through the linguistic analysis with Leximancer and indicates what concepts were grouped under each of these themes. Additionally , Fig. 1shows the distribut ion of the themes on the conceptual maps, illus- trating their connectivity. In these graphs, the arrangement of the concepts and themes (their proximity to each other) shows their relatedne ss in the language used by managers to describe safety culture. The Leximancer program applies an algorithm, which is based on a variant of the spring force model, to simulate forces be- tween concepts in order to develop the concept maps (Smith and Humphre ys, 2006 ). The most central theme on the concept map is the theme with the highest connectivity in each of the manage- ment teams’ descriptions of safety culture. Themes that are close to each other will have a higher number of mutual connections than themes that are more distant to each other. The size of each theme reflects the number of concepts grouped under its umbrella. The results of this analysis further mark similarities in the safety cul- ture descriptions provided by senior managers from the two organ- isations. The program identified ‘safety’ and ‘people’ as subsume dunder common themes in the descriptions from both organisa- tions, suggesting that these two concepts were viewed as related or connected by the senior managers .

The linguistic analysis further revealed more subtle differences in the senior managers’ approaches towards safety culture. First,this applied to the topographical form of the themes and concepts

ectivity Concepts

People, safety, accountability, business, take, sure, clear, organisation,work understand Culture, reporting, level

Improvement, performance, deal

Data, controller, improve Capability Leadership Leaders, environment

330 L.S. Fruhen et al. / Safety Science 57 (2013) 326–334

that were identified. Generally, the concept map of descriptions from Organisation 1 was more diverse, as it involved more themes (number of themes Organisati on 1 = 9, number of themes organisa- tion 2 = 7), and concepts were more spread across the themes,whereas the concepts identified for Organisation 2 were mainly grouped under the theme: ‘people’ (see Fig. 1 and Table 2). Further- more, the concept map of Organisation 1 showed the theme ‘safety’as the most central theme, whereas in Organisation 2, the theme ‘people’ was indicated as the centre of the safety culture map.

Secondly, the language used to describe safety culture pointed to subtle differenc es between the two groups of senior managers.Senior managers from Organisation 1 seemed to refer frequently to communicati on in their responses, as ‘talk’ and ‘discussion’emerged as concepts. Especially the concept ‘discussion’ points to the role of communication as creating flatter hierarchies in this organisation , as it is grouped under the theme ‘operational’, to- gether with the concepts ‘controller s’ (the frontline workforce in ATM) and ‘directly’. The quotes that Leximancer identified as reflecting these concepts under the theme safety further empha- sise the aim of being inclusive: ‘‘we have an open organisat ional cul- ture that is very inclusive ’’ and achieving involvement in safety culture activities ‘‘We are trying to establish yearly meetings with all the chief air traffic controllers now, for two days, where we have safety discussions on standardisation, and also staffing and safety is- sues from the safety staff .’’

As in the content analysis, ‘management’ emerged as a theme from the linguistic analysis of responses from Organisation 1.Quotes identified by Leximancer as related to ‘management’ sug- gest that this is both viewed from the perspective of the workforc e‘‘You have to be very serious and you have to respect the top manage- ment decisions ’’, but also the role of management itself as influenc-ing safety through exemplary behaviou r: ‘‘We have come a long way with this management attitude, management being an example.Maybe this is the most important issue ’’.

Finally, the linguistic analysis of responses from Organisati on 1indicated ‘time’ as a theme. Two aspects can be highlighted based on the content of this theme. First, the theme ‘time’ is indicated as related to the theme ‘management’, as the quotes suggest time as a tool through which management can indicate what they value as important: ‘‘And I try to be visiting all the units once a year, without any real agenda ’’. Secondly, time is also described as a constraint for safety in the organisation: ‘‘And the idea was that they were going back to their units and pass it [safety culture messages] on. But we know that this only works on units, where the bosses have the possibility time wise, because a lot of them work operationally since it is so small units and [it depends on] competence and interest and priority to do it ’’.

For Organisati on 2, the majority of concepts were grouped un- der the theme ‘people’. This group of concepts included ‘people’,‘safety’, ‘accountabi lity’, ‘business’, ‘take’, ‘sure’, ‘clear’, ‘organisa- tion’, ‘work’, ‘understand ’. First, this illustrates the close links that this management team might perceive between safety and busi- ness. The ways in which business (i.e. money, productivity ) and safety might be connected in an industry like ATM is addressed in the following quote identified by Leximancer under the theme ‘people’: ‘‘Very open, very proactive in safety on a tactical point of view, but also on a planning point of view. I think, you know, people,or in this kind of industry, people will always challenge whether we are spending enough on safety ’’. Furthermore, the quotes related to this theme highlight that ‘accounta bility’ was a frequently men- tioned concept in relation to safety culture by the senior managers from this organisation. This concept can be suggested as related to the issue of a just culture as described by Reason, where acceptable and unacceptabl e behaviou r is clearly recognised and is illustrated in the following quote: ‘‘People have woken up to the fact that there is a consequence to not really understanding and taking your safety accountability seriously .’’

The concepts and themes identified in the language of senior managers from Organisation 2 further show this management team’s focus on reporting culture (as in the content analysis) as the concept ‘reporting’ emerged as directly related to the theme ‘culture’. In line with this, the linguistic analysis highlights that this senior managemen t team seems to think of safety culture as being driven by ‘data’ which also emerged as a theme.

Addition al themes suggest that this senior managemen t team views safety culture as an issue that is related to ‘performance’and that it is determined by an emphasis on ‘capabilit y’. Leximanc -er identified the concept ‘improvement’ as related to the theme of ‘perform ance’ which may suggest a proactive orientation towards positive performanc e achievemen ts. The following quote further illustrate this point and highlights that performanc e is approach ed positivel y: ‘‘I mean I can see in my business, that rather than the safety performances being a negative thing [. . .] people see it now as a sense of pride ’’.

4. Discussion

This study set out to investigate senior managers ’ descriptions of safety culture, as a proxy of the way this group thinks about this organisat ional attribute at two levels: the content and the lan- guage. Safety culture is described in the literature as a construct that individuals are exposed to on a conscious, as well as a subcon- scious level. This study attempted to gain access to the surface (i.e.the content) and the underlying meaning (i.e. language as an arte- fact) of this construct. Furthermore, top managers are thought to exert a crucial influence on organisational culture through what they pay attention to (Schein, 2004 ). Accordingly, an analysis involving senior managers reveals the ways in which they think about safety culture and can illustrate what underlying meanings they associate with it. The analysis in this study involved senior managers from two organisations, allowing an identification of the common features and the differences, between their responses,discussed in turn below.

4.1. Common themes across the two organisation s

Across the senior managers from the two organisations, the content mostly reflected the aspect ‘just culture’ from Reason’s(1997) safety culture model. It can be suggested that this dimen- sion differs from the other four safety culture aspects of Reason’s model through its explicit consideration of people and trust. It should be noted that the second most frequently mentioned as- pect, ‘reportin g culture’, shares some of these features (whichwas more frequently identified in Organisation 2). The other three safety culture dimensio ns subside more in the technologic al con- figuration (informed culture, learning culture) or the structure of the organisat ion (flexible culture). For just culture, a focus on trust is evident in the role of fairness of the organisation towards its members, suggesting that this aspect requires active steering from the managemen t. Reporting culture focuses more on the employ- ees being open with their organisat ion. The common theme of peo- ple and trust might indicate that senior managers from both organisat ions view safety culture as predominantl y determined through the trustworthines s of their organisat ions and how this is perceived by its members. This interpretati on of the findings is further supported by the linguistic analysis, which found an inter- connectio n between ‘people’ and ‘safety’, as these two concepts were grouped under one theme in both organisations. Previous lin- guistic analysis also found upper management’s safety schema to include ‘people’ and ‘culture’, highlighting the possible connection between the two constructs (Colley and Neal, 2012 ). Generally, this finding fits descriptions of senior managers’ work as mainly

Fig. 1. Concept maps developed by Leximancer. Note: Theme size is based on the number of concepts grouped underneath each theme. Themes are ‘‘heat coded’’ to indicate their importance – the most important is red, then orange and so on, following the colour wheel the colour. The position depends on the connectivity of the theme with other themes. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

L.S. Fruhen et al. / Safety Science 57 (2013) 326–334 331

exerted through social interactions (e.g. Mintzberg, 1975; Teng- blad, 2006 ). Finding a link, between ‘people’ and ‘safety’, in senior mangers’ thinking about their organisations’ safety culture high- lights that managing organisation al safety really means managing people.

4.2. Differences between the two organisat ions

The findings further highlighted differences in the safety culture descriptions from senior managers of the two organisation s. Senior managers from Organisation 2 were found to focus on reporting culture and data in the content, as well as in the linguistic analysis.Senior managers are described as information workers (Mintzberget al., 1998 ) and safety reports from the workforce are an essential source of their information. Through reports, senior managers stay in touch with their organisat ion and they are likely to base their decisions on this information. Furthermore, the emergence of reporting and data can be interpreted in relation to the concepts ‘performance’, ‘business’ and ‘capability’ which emerged in the lin- guistic analysis of the descriptions from Organisati on 2. The emer- gence of these concepts as linked to ‘safety’ suggests that senior managers in this organisation treat safety as interlink ed with the performanc e of their business, which they evaluate as a competi- tive advantage. This leads to their ambition to measure safety and to assess their organisation ’s level of safety as any other per- formance measure. This approach reflects a possible solution,which this organisat ion has chosen to approach the safety – pro- duction trade-off that is common in risk related industrie s. Because ATM is a highly reliable industry (CAA, 2009 ), with safety as a cru- cial aspect of the product that they deliver, such a connection be- tween business, performanc e and safety might be easier to achieve than in other, less reliable industries.

Senior managers from Organisation 1 did not view their safety culture as driven by reports and data to such an extent. Instead,their safety culture descriptions were identified in both the content and linguistic analyses as concentrated on managemen t. The fre- quent emergence of the theme ‘management’ in this organisat ion’s sample might reflect an awareness of the important role of senior managers regarding safety culture and an acceptance of their own responsibili ty for this issue, as suggested by the literature (e.g.Michael et al., 2005 ) and regulators (e.g. HSE, 2007 ). The theme managemen t should be interpreted in the context of the flatterhierarchical differences that were identified as reflected in the re- sults of the linguistic analysis for this organisat ion. It is likely that

the organisation al structure additionally promotes active involve- ment of senior managers at many organisation al levels. However,the frequent reference to managemen t by senior managers from Organisati on 1 might also reflect a self serving bias in that senior managers themselv es overweigh their own influence on the posi- tive outcome s of safety culture (e.g. Miller and Ross, 1975 ). The theme ‘time’ that emerged in Organisati on 1 can be suggested as a tool for senior managers to indicate what they value as impor- tant. Generally, the work of senior managers offers choice regard- ing the values and priorities that are related to their activities (Tengblad, 2006 ). Accordingly, senior managers have a choice of how much time they want to allocate to safety. Time allocation conveys their value and priority to safety and is especially mean- ingful for senior managers , who deal with time as a limited re- source (Flin, 2003; HSE, 1999 ). The findings indicate that senior managers from Organisati on 1 were aware of this function of their time allocation and also the constraints that time puts on their work on safety.

It needs to be considered where such differenc es might stem from. Both groups of managers work in organisation s that are based in a highly reliable industry and have positive safety records. Their differenc es in thinking about safety culture reflect different ap- proaches towards the same issue. One reason for such differenc es is the context in which the senior managers work, which might in- clude national cultures, organisational cultures, or the size of the organisat ion. National culture has been described by Mearns and Yule (2009) as not necessarily related to safety specific behaviours in organisat ions. However, it can be proposed that, for example,power distance from Hofstede’s (1983) national culture concept contributed to the focus of senior managers on interaction with the workforc e in Organisation 1 (as the power distance score of this Organisati on’s country is lower than for Organisation 2). Further- more, Organisation 1 (ca. 3000 employees ) is only half the size of Organisati on 2 (ca. 6000 employees ), which might facilitate interac- tions with the workforc e. Furthermore, a bigger organisation might be better controlled or guided through informat ion, which can ex- plain the focus of Organisati on 2 on reporting and data.

Another source of the differences might be the managers them- selves and the managemen t teams. It is possible that their under- standing of safety culture is guided by their own strengths,weakness es and the threats and opportunities they see in their environm ent. It is likely that their sense making is filtered through their bounded rationality, as this has been described to influencemanageri al cognition (Hambrick and Mason, 1984 ).

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4.3. Capturing safety culture at two levels – evaluation of the methods

The two types of analysis (linguistic and content analysis) have revealed the ways in which senior managers talk and think about their organisat ions’ safety culture. It can be proposed that the find-ings of the two forms of analysis overlap in some areas (e.g. the fo- cus on people and safety, the role of managemen t in Organisation 1, or the reflection on data and reporting in Organisati on 2). The interconnec tion found between ‘people’ and ‘safety’ in both types of analysis suggests that this is a manifest issue in the senior man- agers’ understanding of safety culture that is expressed both con- sciously and unconsciousl y.

However, the integration of the insights from the two types of analysis suggested that the linguistic analysis enabled an extension of the findings and a clarification of the findings’ meaning based on the identification of linguistic patterns (i.e. the connection between business and safety in Organisation 2; time as a tool for senior managers in the hierarchicall y flatter Organisati on 1). This achieve- ment can be attributed to this analysis’s capability to tap into the deeper, unconscious layers of the participants’ cultural under- standing. The results show that the consideration of these deeper layers allowed the identification of additional ly issues that were not identified as patterns on the surface of the senior managers’responses.

4.4. Strengths, limitations and future research

This study integrated traditional content analysis with linguis- tic analysis, which can be proposed as having enriched the find-ings. These two types of analysis are complemen tary, as one approaches the data deductively (content analysis), whereas the other one is inductive (linguistic analysis). Through the investiga -tion of senior managers’ understanding of safety culture via lan- guage as an artefact of culture, with the Leximancer program and content analysis, the present study addresse s three limitations re- ported in the safety culture and the qualitative research literatures.First, the safety culture literature points to the limitatio ns of the use of questionnair es for gaining access to the deeper meanings of culture (e.g. Flin et al., 2000 ). The present study applied two types of analysis to interview data, to gain insights into the surface,as well as the deeper layers of culture. Secondly, Guldenmund(2000) describes the assessment of safety culture as dominated by qualitative measures that are not easily quantifiable. Through the use of the program Leximancer and content analysis (Mayring,2000), the qualitative phenomenon of safety culture was quanti- fied. Thirdly, the issue of subjectivity and preconcep tions of the re- searcher in the analysis of qualitative material is described as an important challenge (e.g. Malterud, 2001 ). In fact, Elliott et al.(1999) suggest it is impossible to detach the researche r’s perspec- tive totally from qualitative research. The Leximancer program al- lowed a structured analysis of the data, free from subjectivity biases, ensuring that the analysis is fully replicable.

A further strength of the present study is the investigatio n of safety culture from the viewpoint of senior managers , who are an influential group for safety. This population is not easily accessible,which can explain the contrast between their assigned relevance for safety and the actual amount of research directly focussing on them (e.g. Flin, 2003 ). The present study’s results present in- sights into the way this influential group thinks and talks about safety culture and therefore provides highly relevant information.Culture has been described as sense making (Reichers and Schnei- der, 1990 ), and the views from the top are likely to differ from views from other levels of the organisation (Zohar and Luria,2005). This suggests that the sense making presented here may not be universa l for the organisation s involved . Future research using linguistic analysis could therefore compare safety culture

perceptions from different levels of the organisation , different organisat ions, as well as different industries, It should be noted that Colley and Neal (2012) carried out such a comparison for safety schema at different hierarchical levels of the organisation,however they did not examine safety culture explicitly in their interview s.

Furthermor e, as Schein (2004) points out, artefacts such as lan- guage, although easy to observe are difficult to decipher. This is also the case in the present study, as not all concepts identifiedthrough the linguistic analysis are immediately meaningful and their relation to Reason’s safety culture model is not necessar ily clear. This linguistic analysis complemen ted the insights gained from the content analysis. In order to clarify the meaning of the identified themes from the content analysis and support their interpretati on, they were reported with quotes. However, their selection may have been influenced by the subjectivity of the researche rs.

It was not possible to relate this study’s findings to safety or other performance measure s. Such information was not available to the researchers but in future research with a larger sample of business units or organisation s, it would be instructive to examine whether dominant themes were related to outcome data.

A further limitation is the risk of bias related to interviews. It is likely that senior managers’ responses were coloured by impres- sion management, which implies that their safety culture descrip- tions do not express their actual views and actions. It is also possible that the types of questions asked in the interview biased the participants’ responses. However, the questions asked were open and participants were encouraged to express their views,allowing them to spontaneou sly raise issues (Travaglia et al.,2009). Nonetheless, it needs to be acknowledged that senior man- agers often receive communi cation or media training and are likely to know the ‘‘right’’ answers to interview questions. In order to establish how valid the findings of this study are and to what ex- tent they reflect genuine attitudes of the interviewees, a compari- son with other safety culture data might have been valuable. For example, gathering upward perceptions from middle managers or observati ons of the senior managers’ actions in relation to safety might allow insights into whether the content of senior managers’talk about safety actually matches their actions.

Furthermor e, although the sample fulfils saturatio n criteria for qualitativ e analysis (Guest et al., 2006 ), it only represents a small number of senior managers. It remains unclear to what extent these findings are applicable to other senior management teams in the ATM industry, as well as in other industries. Nevertheles s,this study can be evaluated as an illustrative case study of different views of senior managers on their organisat ions’ safety culture.

Finally, Smith and Humphre ys (2006) emphasise that reliability,face validity, stability (sampling of members), and reproducibi lity (including structural validity, sampling of representative s, and pre- dictive validity), have been demonst rated for the Leximanc er method. However, it should be noted that its external validity has not been tested.

4.5. Practical implication

The use of content and linguistic analysis to gain access to the surface and a deeper understa nding of culture can be beneficialfor organisation al research. Visualisation of senior managers’ ways of talking about safety culture can stimulate reflection about their communi cation, as this appears to have a key impact on safety (e.g.Neal and Griffin, 2004 ). Furthermore, as language reflects the way individua ls think about issues (i.e. their mental map), a visualisa -tion of mental maps can serve as a reality check for organisation al members: Does the language we use to describe a phenomenon like culture match our espoused values and especially our actions?

L.S. Fruhen et al. / Safety Science 57 (2013) 326–334 333

To what extent does this correspond to the results from a safety culture survey? Linguistic analysis enables a consideration of what is said between the lines of the described context in a content anal- ysis. Both the conscious and the unconscious conceptualisati on of safety culture by senior managers are perceived by the workforce (whether consciously or unconsciously). Leximancer might enable more frequent use of linguistic analysis in practice, as it is rela- tively easy to use, cost effective and allows analysis of large amounts of text (Colley and Neal, 2012 ). Linguistic analysis of se- nior manageri al safety culture descriptions may help to reveal their priorities and values. The findings suggest that senior manag- ers consciously, as well as subconscious ly, view their influence on organisation s as exerted through people. Approaches to the issue of safety culture can differ in many respects: One organisation was found to rely on communicati on and flatter hierarchies,whereas the other one placed an emphasis on controlling safety culture through accountabil ity and accurate data. Ultimately, this finding indicates that there may be multiple paths towards approaching the same goal, depending on the business environ- ment, national culture or other factors. Senior managers can be encouraged to reflect on their own biases, as well as the context in which they operate, and on how these factors influence their ap- proach towards organisat ional safety culture.

Acknowled gements

We would like to thank EUROCONTR OL for sponsoring this study and supporting our work through the recruitment of partic- ipants. We thank Amy Irwin for her support with the content anal- ysis. We acknowled ge and thank the senior managers who have been willing to share their valuable time and insights with us.

Appendix A.

Frequency and connectivity of concepts from linguistic analysis.

Organisation 1

Concept Frequency Connectivit y

Safety 34 100 Culture 34 100 Management 19 56 People 13 38 Important 11 32 Talk 11 32 Units 7 21 Working 7 21 Time 7 21 Started 6 18 Operational 6 18 Top 6 18 Directly 6 18 Discussions 5 15 Use 5 15 Competence 5 15 Controllers 4 12 Issues 4 12 Organisation 4 12 Wanted 3 9Whole 3 9Results 3 9Build 3 9

Note: Frequency = the number of text passages identified by Leximancer as reflecting th

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