Recommendations: Institution-Wide Dynamics and Resources

Recommendation 7. The campus lead, leadership team, and faculty work to create a trusting and safe culture. They encourage the development of a generative cultures based on open dialogue, reporting, and learning from near misses, as described by the National Academy of Sciences.

The Report of the Task Force for Advancing the Culture of Laboratory at Stanford University
Available at Stanford University.
Provides interview findings from ethnographic studies of Stanford’s research personnel as well as findings from its culture of safety climate survey. These provide context on the values, attitudes, and behaviors of research personnel that could help facilitate more open dialogue.
Lawler, E.E. High-Involvement Management. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA, 1986 –ISBN-0-87589-686-3.
Conchie, S. M., P. J. Taylor, and I. J. Donald. Promoting safety voice with safety-specific transformational leadership: The mediating role of two dimensions of trust. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology 2012; 17(1): 105-115.
Available at APA PsycNET.

From Safe Science: Promoting a Culture of Safety in Academic Chemical Research (NRC, 2014):
- Recommendation 5. Department chairs and principal investigators should make greater use of teams, groups, and other engagement strategies and institutional support organizations (e.g. environmental health and safety, facilities), to establish and promote a strong, positive, safety culture.
From Creating Safety Cultures in Academic Institutions (ACS, 2012):
- Recommendation 9. Adopt a personal credo: the “Safety Ethic”-value safety, work safely, prevent at-risk behavior, promote safety, and accept responsibility for safety.
From Creating a Safety Culture (OSHA, 1989):
- Build trust. Trust is a critical part of accepting change, and management needs to know that this is the bigger picture, outside of all the details. Trust will occur as different levels within the organization work together and begin to see success.