In view of safety management being introduced in more and more industries, the aim of this paper is to
discuss what different high-risk industries can learn from each other and what limits for generalizing
safety management methods within and across industries exist. After presenting core components of
safety management, three attributes crucial to any organization’s functioning are described, which also
affect the way safety management systems should be designed, run, and assessed. These attributes are
(1) the kinds of safety to be managed, (2) the general approach to managing uncertainty as a hallmark
of organizations that manage safety, and (3) the regulatory regime within which safety is managed. By
discussing safety management in the context of these three attributes, contingencies are outlined that
can help decision-makers in companies to tailor safety management to their own situation and support
regulators in drawing up and evaluating safety management requirements for different industries while
also promoting learning between different high-risk domains. Standards and procedures, safety training,
incident reporting and investigation, and safety culture are taken as examples to illustrate why and how
different aspects of organizational functioning should be taken into account when designing and evaluating
safety management systems or elements thereof.