Safety Culture Evaluation: a Case Study of Metal Products Industry in Iran, Guilan Province

Safety culture is a complex structure in an organization that includes values and attitudes, most of which are potentially changeable and related to actual accident behavior. In this study, the components of safety culture included organizational commitment, management involvement, employee empowerment, reporting system, and rewarding system. The objectives of this study were: (i) to evaluate the safety culture, (ii) to analyze the difference in safety culture components, and (iii) to analyze the difference in safety culture in the metal products industry in Guilan Province, Iran with regard to companies’ size. This study consisted of two hypotheses. Metal products industry was chosen because of the higher occupational injuries rates amongst the industries in Iran. A total of 714 respondents from 14 companies participated in the survey. The companies were chosen based on their size. The method used in this study was a questionnaires quantitative type based on a Lickert scale and the data collected were analyzed statistically. The one-way ANOVA was used to test for significant difference in safety culture components, and significant difference in safety culture in the metal products industry with regard to companies’ size. The results of the study showed that safety culture was not strong based on the mean for average score of 2.58 which was less than 3 compared to the possible maximum of 5. One-way ANOVA analysis revealed that there was a significant difference among safety culture components where respondents regards rewarding system as the strongest component while reporting system as the weakest. The same analysis also revealed that there was a significant difference among safety culture with respect to companies’ size. Large companies had stronger safety culture compared to smaller one. The findings showed that the hypotheses of this study are acceptable. This study also indicated that the safety culture in the metal products industry in Guilan Province, Iran can be improved through improvement of its five components.

Safety Culture Evaluation: a Case Study of Metal Products Industry in Iran, Guilan Province Keywords:

Culture-Commitment-Involvement-Empowerment-Reporting-Rewarding