An analysis of the relationship between organizational culture and safety culture in view of occupational health and safety: A study at a mining enterprise

Every organization is shaped by firstly the culture of the country it is established in, secondly the culture of the sector it belongs to and thirdly the culture initiated by its founders and directors. The cultural charachteristics of an organization have their roots in the basic values and perceptions shared by its members and are reflected in working methods, communication styles, traditions, procedures, routine practices and the interindividual and intragroup relationships. Safety culture, on the other hand, defines the shared point of view concerning occupational health and safety (OHS) issues, priority degree of safety at work, how the responsibility of safety is shared and how the problems concerning safety are solved in an organization. This study considers the occupational health and safety topic with a management and organization perspective and it is set off with the assumption that a good safety culture is a prerequisite for the success of OHS efforts. Also it is considered to be more beneficial to examine safety culture of an organization within its organizational culture. In this context, in order to answer the basic research questions, the literatures of OHS, organizational culture and safety culture were reviewed first. Thus importance of safety culture was explained. Second, considering high levels of health and safety risks of the mining sector, and emprical research concerning organizational and safety cultures was carried out at a coal mine located in Kütahya, Turkey. Data was collected using a survey composed of demographical questions, Organizational Culture Assessment Tool (OCAI) by Cameron and Quinn (1999), and safety culture scale by Dursun (2012). Results of the analyses revealed that the four organizational culture types, namely Clan, Adhocracy, Market and Hierarchy, have statistically significant relationships with the dimensions of safety culture such as priority of safety, safety communication and predestinarianism.