1. IntroductionThe term ‘‘safety culture’’ was first introduced to the nuclear industry as part of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) assessment of the causes of the 1986 Chernobyl accident. The International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group (INSAG), an advisory group reporting to the Director General of the IAEA, concluded that ‘‘Formal procedures, properly reviewed and approved, must be supplemented by the creation and maintenance of a nuclear safety culture’’ (INSAG, 1986). Although not labeled ‘‘safety culture’’ at the time, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) also recognized the contribution of organizational factors to accidents in their investigation of the Three Mile Island (TMI) accident in 1979. The NRC’s investigation report stated that ‘‘The one theme that runs through the conclusions we have reached is that the principal deficiencies in commercial reactor safety today are not hardware problems, they are management problems’’ (Rogovin, 1980). These accident investigations helped spur research in the area of safety culture to understand how shared, underlying beliefs and values in an organization may help or hinder safe performance