Corporate Culture

Corporate Culture

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Designing a total safety culture at an aviation organization

The significant elements needed for an effective design and adaptation of the Total Safety Culture include positive employee setting, management concern and management support. The management support entails various factors such as a written philosophy included in the mission statement to demonstrate their commitment to safety performance. Work environment includes designing the Flight Department with safety concepts while the inclusion of a safety officer in an executive post indicates that the business prioritizes safety. The company should prioritize safety discussion to show their commitment to safety and safety training must be viewed as an on-going process. More so, including the safety records of the workers in the yearly performance reviews indicates the company’s commitment to safety CITATION Hom98 \l 1033 (Homan, Rantz, & Balden, 1998).

In management concern element, there exist 4 factors that improve the safety culture implementation such as a corporate model used by the company can impact the safety culture and a democratic management style remains effective. Safety knowledge requires the management to have adequate knowledge of the safety issues faced by the Flight Department in the company to improve the safety culture. Allocation of resources show the organization commitment to safety and injury causation requires the management to stop blaming the workers for the safety issues leading to identification of casual elements and preventive measures CITATION Von03 \l 1033 (Von Thaden, Wiegmann, Mitchell, Sharma, & Zhang, 2003).

In positive employee setting, there exist 7 conditions that possess a significant impact on maintaining and establishing a positive safety culture. They include management actions to address the safety issues within the firm, and promotion of secure and clean working setting by the management to enhance the safety culture perception. Open and clear feed promote safety culture and appropriate treatment of employee enhance the safety culture. Organizational compatibility, ethics and commitment of the employees assist in developing and maintaining a safety culture CITATION Hom98 \l 1033 (Homan, Rantz, & Balden, 1998)

Human behavior and relation to safety

Accidents don’t happen often and the employee’s natural human susceptibility leads them to depend on simple and fast alternative methods to perform a task. There exist defensive techniques to assist workers in coping with the desire to undertake risks instead of adhering to the safety standards. Humans find it interesting to reside on the edge and undertake risks, but find complying with the safety acts uninteresting. As a result, people fight the commons sense and human nature battle at personal levels CITATION Hom98 \l 1033 (Homan, Rantz, & Balden, 1998).

Personal attitudes to safety

Some of the threatening attitudes that can affect safety in the aviation environment include impulsivity where people aim at doing things faster or immediately, Anti-authority attitude lead individuals in doing tasks their own way and don’t recognize other people’s authority. The macho attitude is found in individuals who try to prove that they remain better than others and impress their colleagues while the invulnerability attitudes is discovered in humans who believe that other individuals get involved in accidents and not them. The resignation attitude is found in employees who don’t recognize their efforts leading to unsafe performance CITATION Hom98 \l 1033 (Homan, Rantz, & Balden, 1998).

Behavior-based approach to aviation safety

The behavior concentrates on the workers’ observed behaviors and the company environment that impacts them. It emphasizes on the individual on-the-job acts and the firm’s environment that support the acts. The errors are perceived on the comprehensive analysis concept and the initial blames are not assigned as compared to the ancient method where conditions and the workers were initially blamed for the errors from the beginning of the investigations CITATION Hom98 \l 1033 (Homan, Rantz, & Balden, 1998). The method involves determining issues, collecting and analyzing the data to enhance the workplace conditions as well as using open communication and feedback resulting in progressive awareness and total safety culture in the company CITATION Von03 \l 1033 (Von Thaden, Wiegmann, Mitchell, Sharma, & Zhang, 2003).

Crew resource management and flight organizations

Traditionally, the crew resource management was developed to minimize the human element connected accidents and enhance the human-machine interface by improving flight deck situational, decision making and teamwork. However, currently, the crew resource management has broadened to include the maintenance technicians, cabin crews, and flight crews and involves aviation personnel specialized training and developing a more friendly working setting. The key aim of the CRM entails minimizing potential overlooked errors CITATION Hom98 \l 1033 (Homan, Rantz, & Balden, 1998).

Purpose of the firm and how its goal may conflict with aviation safety

Conflict of interest may exist between safety and production within a company, including the nature of feedback where the generated feedback by the input pursuit remains compelling, clear and rapid and the production associated with the safety pursuit remains intermittent and negative and compelling after a key accident and the management may assume the safety and concentrate on production. More so, the resources aimed at enhancing production possess specific outcomes, but those directed towards improving safety don’t possess certain outcomes CITATION Hom98 \l 1033 (Homan, Rantz, & Balden, 1998).

Link between senior corporate management and safety at aviation organizations

Senior managers are business school graduates and they do not possess adequate training and knowledge of safety management and the MBAs obtain training concerning the services and product line of the company and the safety training is overlooked. More so, companies view safety costs as an interruption to their short-term objectives, leaving the Safety Officer with the role of safety management and they may not take the safety issue seriously. As a result, the corporate management does not participate and engage in the safety in the aviation unit CITATION Hom98 \l 1033 (Homan, Rantz, & Balden, 1998).

Corporate culture and how it relates to safety culture in the context of CRM

The management assumption creates the corporate culture foundation and reveals the standards and values of the management and the manner in which they perform the business and the expectations of the workers influencing the work setting. Therefore, it remains difficult to change and the workers’ should adjust their beliefs and attitudes in case of any changes CITATION Von03 \l 1033 (Von Thaden, Wiegmann, Mitchell, Sharma, & Zhang, 2003).

The importance of employee perceptions when discussing corporate safety culture

An organization culture that remains powerful and positive will ensure an open communication concerning safety issues within the company and the workers will participate in the safety discussions and training compared to an organizational culture that is negative and weak. The behavior and the acts of the senior management towards safety can impact the subordinates can impact their commitment towards safety either positively or negatively CITATION Hom98 \l 1033 (Homan, Rantz, & Balden, 1998).

How mergers and joint flight departments could create issues for aviation safety when the basic CRM principles are ignored

Lack of compatibility in mergers can result in corporate culture shock, but the mergers and the joining flight departments minimize transportation expenses, however, the policies and practices in the 2 companies may be different and can increase the chances of errors and accidents CITATION Hom98 \l 1033 (Homan, Rantz, & Balden, 1998). For instance, if 2 flight companies merge, the crew pairing from the two companies can result in confusion among the crew because they do not understand distinctions in the in the procedures leading to errors or accidents CITATION Von03 \l 1033 (Von Thaden, Wiegmann, Mitchell, Sharma, & Zhang, 2003).

Reference

BIBLIOGRAPHY \l 1033 Homan, W. J., Rantz, W. G., & Balden, B. R. (1998). Establishing a Total Safety Culture within a Flight Department . Retrieved from Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research, 8(2): http://commons.erau.edu/jaaer/vol8/iss2/3

Von Thaden, T., Wiegmann, D., Mitchell, A., Sharma, G., & Zhang, H. (2003). Safety Culture in a Regional Airline: Results From a Commercial Aviation Safety Survey. Retrieved from In Proceedings of the 12th International Symposium on Aviation Psychology, Dayton, Ohio, USA.