The paradox is that the safety culture concept was originally
introduced precisely because the phenomena affecting safety are
systemic in nature and purely linear models or technological solutions were found inadequate to manage complex sociotechnical
systems. Accidents such as Chernobyl and Piper Alpha showed that
organisations need to pay attention to the so-called soft issues. The
concept of safety culture tried to depict these soft issues in a manner
that would allow their development. Probably due to the ambiguities in the concept itself, the research on safety culture has then
focused inwards on the dimensions comprising the concept. The
systemic possibilities offered by a human-centric concept have so
far been largely lost in this neglect of modelling safety culture in
the context of the sociotechnical system. As a consequence, safety
culture improvements have been made without considering the
overall safety of the system and obvious disappointments in the
applicability of the concept have ensued.