An adaptive management system for hazardous technology organizations

This paper introduces a management system suitable for hazardous technology organizations which has been developed based on the assumptions that in these organizations safety is a critical strategic factor, the existence of an enhanced safety culture is a crucial condition for safety and that safety culture enhancement implies in organizational changes. The management system was theoretically developed and then implemented at a Brazilian nuclear research and development installation, as a case study, in order to validate the theoretical propositions assumed in the system development. The developed management system comprises a day-to-day based organizational framework which treats safety as one of the organization strategic perspectives and provides a continuous adaptation of the complex causal inter-relationships which occur between the implementation of new management practices – designed and implemented according to the requirements of the criteria of excellence of the Brazilian quality award management assessment model – and the organization safety culture. The results achieved in the case study permitted to demonstrate the validness of all the system theoretical propositions and to conclude that the continuous and systematic operation of the management system makes an eVective safety culture enhancement possible and simultaneously facilitates that the new management practices be eVectively implemented, thus making continuous organizational improvement possible. © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author. Present address: Brazilian Nuclear Energy Commission, Rua General Severiano 90, Botafogo, Rio de Janeiro, CEP 22.294-900, RJ, Brazil. Tel.: +55 21 2546 2211; fax: +55 21 2546 2316. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (I.J. Obadia), [email protected] (M.C.R. Vidal), frutuoso@ con.ufrj.br (P.F.F.F. e Melo). 374 I.J. Obadia et al. / Safety Science 45 (2007) 373–396