Integrating a Top-Down and a Bottom-Up Approach: Formal and Informal Risk Handling Strategies in a Utility Company

Two approaches towards safety culture can be distinguished, of which the dominant one focuses on risk handling based on bureaucracy and the other one on craftsmanship. Bureaucratic risk handling pertains to rules and procedures, formal training and education, and enforcement of rule compliance; craftsmanship to discretionary specialization, tacit knowledge, and personal responsibility. The purpose of our study was to bring the two strands of safety culture research together by measuring both risk handling strategies with a survey (N = 265) in a Dutch utility company. We show that bureaucratic risk handling can be measured as such, while discretionary specialization, tacit knowledge, and personal responsibility can be measured as separate informal risk handling strategies, but can not be brought under the general heading of craftsmanship. Moreover, we demonstrate that while the perceived presence of bureaucratic risk handling decreases unsafe behavior, the perceived presence of the three dimensions of craftsmanship have mixed effects on unsafe behavior. We conclude that we have succeeded in validating the measurement of both risk handling strategies, each derived from a different approach towards safety culture.