The safety management system as a tool for building safety culture in aviation: A qualitative research

Safety culture is expressed as a set of beliefs, norms, attitudes, roles, social and technical practices in the organization that are concerned with minimizing the exposure of individuals inside and outside the organization to undesirable or dangerous conditions. It also has the feature of being a tool that guides the organization towards the highest attainable safety goal, regardless of any breach, obstruction or pressure. This culture, which is an effective tool that provides motivation for employees to have safer working efficiencies, can also be expressed as a safety approach that helps to avoid the unsafe effect of safety-related risks more easily. In organizations with a high level of safety culture; there is an effective communication environment based on overconfidence between management and workers. Operational hazards and faults are more easily recognized. A framework has been established for employees to engage in appropriate safety behavior and employees engage is safe behavior in high-risk facilities. Achieving a high level of safety culture in all aviation organizations will greatly contribute to achieving a high level of safety by preventing human-related accidents, incidents, faults, hazards and risks to a large extent. The most important factor in reaching this level is the creation of a safety culture through an effective SMS. It is important to focus heavily on the SMS to build a safety culture. The SMS provides a framework for employees to guide their safety-related behavior and this framework should be supported by appropriate management leadership. A safety culture can be established by the effective and dynamic implementation of SMS components and processes. In this study, a qualitative research was conducted in aviation enterprises operating in Türkiye in order to test the accuracy of the basic view that SMS can be used as a tool in established a safety culture in aviation. As a result of the study, it has been determined that the level of safety culture of the enterprises that do not implement the SMS and their processes effectively is low. It has been determined that a high level of safety culture has been reached in the enterprises that implement it effectively.