Culture and behavioural perspectives on safety -- towards a balanced approach

The core aim of this paper was to examine differences or similarities in cultural and behaviour-based approaches to safety. The theoretical bases for culture theories and behaviourism are very different and, at times, mutually excluding. While many culture theories focus on cognitive aspects like values, ideas and thoughts -- in short, patterns of meaning -- behaviourism tends to neglect the cognitive aspects of human life and focus strictly on behaviour. We find cultural perspectives to be poorly treated in safety research and assert a need for cultural approaches in general and a better understanding of them in particular. In order to do so, we introduce a four-field model which balances between tacit or explicit sides of culture and whether the approach focuses on behavioural or cultural aspects. Time, stability and change are also integrated in the discussion of the model; whether risks are treated as sudden, observable events or as developing over a longer time period, and not-so-easily observable phenomena.