Safety culture development, research, and implementation in China: An overview

Abstract

Many organizations around the world have considered safety culture as an emerging research field to address the needs of safety performance improvement and an important means and enabler of safety. The concept of safety culture was introduced in China in the early 1990s with support and encouragement from all levels of the government. Ever since, safety culture has greatly developed and received increasing attention in China, especially in the 21st century, and its research and practice have been very fruitful. However, such research is little known in the rest of the world because most works were published or introduced in Chinese. The two key objectives of this paper are: (1) to analyze the current state of safety culture research in China and (2) to introduce China's safety culture development, achievements, and prospects briefly. First, the long and dynamic journey of safety culture development in China is introduced. Then the current state of safety culture research in China is explained through literature analysis, and some key achievements in recent years are introduced. Finally, the prospects of safety culture in China over the next five years are introduced by combining the demand of safe development and the current Chinese safety culture research and the suggestions in the Thirteenth-Five-Year Plan for Work Safety formulated on February 3, 2017. However more detailed research needs to be carried out for a deeper understanding of China's safety culture development, research, and implementation.