Food safety culture: the evolution of an emerging risk factor?

Purpose – Outbreaks of foodborne disease are often investigated to determine the causes although traditional approaches to identifying risk factors may not determine the real or underlying causes. The aim of this paper is to identify a food safety culture that can be used in addition to more traditional risk factors.Design/methodology/approach – A parallel is drawn between the use of the term “emerging pathogen” and the emergence of food safety culture as a risk factor in food poisoning outbreaks. The evolution of the term starting with organizational culture is developed via the literature on health and safety culture. The concept of food safety culture and reservations over the use of the term are examined along with possible distinctions between food safety culture and climate.Findings – The concept of food safety culture has direct parallels with “safety culture” and in the prevention of healthcare associated infections. The use of food safety culture is useful as part of outbreak investigation. It is...

[1]  P. Bierly.  Culture and High Reliability Organizations: The Case of the Nuclear Submarine: , 1995 .

[2]  Richard O. Mason.  Lessons in Organizational Ethics from the Columbia Disaster: Can a Culture be Lethal? , 2004 .

[3]  T. Deal,et al.  Corporate Cultures: The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life. , 1982 .

[4]  J. W. Bethea,et al.  Organizing for Safety , 1958 .

[5]  T. Royle.  Recruiting the Acquiescent Workforce: A Comparative Analysis of McDonald's in Germany and the UK , 1999 .

[6]  Kathryn Mearns,et al.  Safety climate, safety management practice and safety performance in offshore environments , 2003 .

[7]  F. Guldenmund.  The nature of safety culture: a review of theory and research , 2000 .

[8]  James T. Reason,et al.  Achieving a safe culture : theory and practice , 1998 .

[9]  R Flin,et al.  Leadership for safety: industrial experience , 2004, Quality and Safety in Health Care.

[10]  Jaan Valsiner,et al.  Culture and Human Development , 2000 .

[11]  Sharon Clarke,et al.  Safety culture: under-specified and overrated? , 2000 .

[12]  T. Cox,et al.  The structure of employee attitudes to safety: A European example , 1991 .

[13]  A. Peters,et al.  Food handlers' beliefs and self-reported practices , 2002, International journal of environmental health research.

[14]  Patrick Killimett.  Organizational factors that influence safety , 2006 .

[15]  E. Schein.  Organisational culture and leadership , 1991 .

[16]  D. Zohar.  The effects of leadership dimensions, safety climate, and assigned priorities on minor injuries in work groups , 2002 .

[17]  D. Buchanan,et al.  Organizational Behaviour: an Introductory Text , 1972 .

[18]  M. D. Cooper.  Towards a model of safety culture , 2000 .

[19]  Joan Harvey,et al.  The effectiveness of training to change safety culture and attitudes within a highly regulated environment , 2001 .

[20]  Paul N. Sharratt,et al.  Organizational Climate Metrics as Safety, Health and Environment Performance Indicators and an Aid to Relative Risk Ranking within Industry , 2007 .

[21]  Dominic Cooper,et al.  Improving Safety Culture: A Practical Guide , 1997 .

[22]  L. Harris,et al.  Organizational Culture: A Ten Year, Two-phase Study of Change in the UK Food Retailing Sector , 2002 .

[23]  J. Harvey,et al.  An analysis of safety culture attitudes in a highly regulated environment , 2002 .

[24]  Gil Luria,et al.  The use of supervisory practices as leverage to improve safety behavior: a cross-level intervention model. , 2003, Journal of safety research.

[25]  Martin E. Smith.  Changing an organisation’s culture: correlates of success and failure , 2003 .

[26]  G. Hofstede.  Attitudes, Values and Organizational Culture: Disentangling the Concepts , 1998 .

[27]  N. Pidgeon.  Safety Culture and Risk Management in Organizations , 1991 .

[28]  V. Nieva,et al.  Safety culture assessment: a tool for improving patient safety in healthcare organizations , 2003, Quality & safety in health care.

[29]  R D Chute,et al.  Cockpit-cabin communication: I. A tale of two cultures. , 1995, The International journal of aviation psychology.

[30]  B. Richardson.  Paradox management for crisis avoidance , 1995 .

[31]  John S. Carroll.  Safety culture as an ongoing process: Culture surveys as opportunities for enquiry and change , 1998 .

[32]  Frank Yiannas,et al.  Food Safety Culture: Creating a Behavior-Based Food Safety Management System , 2008 .

[33]  Jill Earnshaw,et al.  Recruitment in small firms: Processes, methods and problems , 1999 .

[34]  R. Flin,et al.  Safety culture: philosopher’s stone or man of straw? , 1998 .