Major accidents in Western countries, receiving a lot of media attention in the 1970s, are starting point for research into internal and external domino effects in the chemical and petrochemical sectors and clusters. Initially, these reports are published by government institutions and government-related research centres. With the upcoming quantitative risk analyses in the 1970s and 1980s, the so-called öcoloured books’, published in the Netherlands, play a prominent role in quantifying these domino effects. Since the mid 1990s, the second European Seveso Directive encourages scientific research on domino effects, shown in substantially growth of academic publications on the topic. Research in Western countries is dominated by risk assessments, probabilities, and failure mechanisms are calculated for the complex phenomenon of domino effects and its consequences. Previous works are closely related to political, official and private decision-making. A transition towards risk management is still in its infancy. A future transition is necessary to understand initial scenarios as starting points for domino effects.

In India a wake-up call for domino effects occurs in the mid-1990s. Chinese publications on domino effects in the international scientific press appear from the mid-2000s onwards. Due to a rapid industrialisation, the numbers in China country are overwhelming, versus chemical companies, as versus of many major accidents in this sector.

This article will discuss results of research on domino effects, conducted in the period 1966–2018, as well as major determinants of these accident processes. Also present, and future transition in this research domain will be discussed.@en

Dit artikel laat ontwikkelingen en beperkingen zien van grafische presentaties van veiligheidsconcepten. Veiligheidsposters zijn krachtig en overtuigend met een duidelijke boodschap. De vroege posters spelen in op angst, schaamte en schuldgevoelens. Vanaf de jaren zeventig in een veranderend politiek en sociaal klimaat wijzigt de boodschap en wordt de boodschap neutraal, zonder morele ondertoon.

Presentaties van de ontwikkelingen van het veiligheids- domein geven verschillende beelden. Er zijn auteurs met een nadruk op organisatorische factoren, of op gedrag. Dit hangt samen met een verschil in de interpretatie van het concept van veiligheidscultuur. De kosten-batenanalyse, een derde ontwikkeling, genereert rationele argumenten voor de besluitvorming over veiligheidsinvesteringen.

Visualisaties van modellen en metaforen laten een groei- end begrip zien van latente factoren van organisaties, als beslissende elementen van ongevalsprocessen. Met een van de metaforen is de ontwikkeling van majeure ongevalsscenario's te volgen, waardoor vroegtijdige preventie mogelijk wordt.
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In this paper, safety-related terms, factors and dimensions, such as safety climate, safety attitude, safety behaviour, safety technology, safety procedures, safety training, safety perception and others, are investigated from the perspective of safety culture. Based on an extensive review of literature regarding existing studies and models with respect to safety, an overall conceptual ‘big picture’ model of safety culture is developed and suggested. This model, called The Egg Aggregated Model, and abbreviated TEAM, provides a clear overview of how safety culture can be viewed in an organisation and how the different safety factors and dimensions constituting the safety culture are related in a cyclic way.

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A conceptual framework for physical security culture in organisations is proposed, based on the integrative model of safety culture, as developed by Vierendeels et al. (2018). The proposed conceptual framework for physical security culture has the advantage that it brings security threats, technique, organisation and human aspects together in a coherent, integrative and related way. The framework includes five main domains of security culture, being (a) an observable technological domain, (b) an observable organisational domain, (c) an observable human domain, (d) a non-observable organisational domain or perceptual domain, and (e) a non-observable human domain or psychological domain. These five main domains can be further divided into several more specific sub-domains of security culture. At their turn, these sub-domains can be translated into measurable security results, being (a) observable security outcomes, (b) the security climate of an organisation or the shared perceptions on security, and (c) the individual intention to behave secure or insecure. The aim of the framework is to take all security-related aspects into account – based on the specific security threats to which an organisation is exposed – leading to a pro-active approach of the physical security of organisations. The framework provides specific points of departure to make the security culture measurable, and by extension controllable.@en

A Belgian manufacturing company uses pallet movers for internal transport. Despite the company's efforts to improve occupational safety, accidents with pallet movers remain noteworthy. In order to control occupational accidents, it is crucial to have a clear view of the potential accident scenarios that are present in a company. The bow-tie method is a way to capture and visualize these accident processes in an integrative way. Included in the bow-tie are safety barriers (both technical as organizational and human) and management delivery systems that can intervene in these accident processes. Once bow-ties are composed, they are an excellent point of departure to assign indicators to the safety barriers and management delivery systems in order to control (i.e., prevent or mitigate) accident scenarios. Two types of indicators can be distinguished. Firstly, there are general indicators that are assigned to management delivery systems interrupting multiple accident scenarios, which can yield a higher safety gain (as they intervene in multiple accident scenarios). Secondly, there are scenario-specific indicators targeting one specific accident scenario, which can be valuable as they target a specific problem in the company. For the development of the bow-ties, a multi-method design with the inclusion of different data sources was used, leading to a comprehensive overview. This makes the bow-tie analysis of internal transport with pallet movers transferable to other settings where pallet movers are used for internal transport.

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Een Belgisch bedrijf uit de maakindustrie gebruikt palletwagens voor intern transport. Ondanks de veiligheidsinspanningen van het bedrijf blijven ongevallen met pallet wagens frequent voorvallen. Om arbeids ongevallen te beheersen is het belangrijk om een goed zicht te hebben op de potentiële ongevalsscenario's aanwezig in het bedrijf. De bow-tie methode of het vlinderdasmodel is een manier om deze ongevalsscenario's visueel in kaart te brengen op een integrale manier. In de vlinderdas zijn veiligheidsbarrières (zowel technische als organisatorische en menselijke) en managementfactoren geïncludeerd die kunnen ingrijpen op de ongevalsprocessen. De vlinderdas is een uitstekend vertrekpunt om indicatoren toe te wijzen aan veiligheidsbarrières en managementfactoren met als doel de ongevalsscenario's te beheersen (i.e. te voorkomen of te beperken). Twee types van indicatoren kunnen onderscheiden worden. Ten eerste zijn er de algemene indicatoren die toegewezen worden aan managementfactoren die ingrijpen op meerdere ongevalsscenario's, en op die manier een hogere veiligheidswinst kunnen opleveren. Ten tweede zijn er scenario-specifieke indicatoren die ingrijpen op een specifiek ongevalsscenario, en op die manier een veiligheidswinst kunnen opleveren voor een specifiek probleem in het bedrijf. Voor het opstellen van de vlinderdas worden verschillende databronnen gebruikt (zowel bedrijfsspecifieke als niet-bedrijfsspecifieke bronnen), wat leidt tot een integraal en algemeen overzicht. Hierdoor zijn de resultaten ook bruikbaar voor andere omgevingen waar palletwagens worden ingezet voor intern transport.@en

To support organisations in addressing their safety culture, practical tools have been developed worldwide. Based on such practical tools, it is possible to measure where an organisation is situated regarding its safety culture in order to identify priority areas, formulate appropriate improvement strategies and determine changes over time. In this paper, it is examined which practical tools to measure and improve safety culture are provided on the Belgian market. In total, 15 Belgian tools were identified, of which 8 agreed to cooperate. Amongst the included tools, there is a lot of variation regarding the methods to diagnose the safety culture and the overall procedure to improve the safety culture. The importance to adapt the tool to the specific needs and context of organisations is acknowledged in most of the tools, as well as the importance to use a multi-method approach to measure the safety culture. Also, it is recognised that all hierarchic levels should participate during the process of diagnosing the safety culture. A point of attention is this overall participation during the validation of the results of the diagnosis, and the priority setting of the recommendations, which is mainly done by the higher management. The development of the Belgian tools is based on experience with a focus on direct practical application, which leads to the fact that none of the tools are validated through scientific evidence. Another point of attention is that organisations pay too little attention at the continuity of safety culture research. And finally, the question can be raised if the safety culture tools actually address the concept ‘safety culture’, or if they address only a subset of the concept. When safety culture is addressed, a comprehensive approach should be used, where technological, organisational, human and external aspects are taken into account as interacting and interrelating elements.

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Decision-making under risk and uncertainty is not straightforward. This paper investigates how people make decisions when they need to choose between prevention and production investments and the decision involves risks and uncertainties that could have major negative consequences. A questionnaire was conducted among 405 students at the University of Antwerp, in Belgium. With regard to decision-making under risk, the findings reveal that the respondents behaved in a more risk-averse manner than predicted by the theory of expected values. Concerning decision-making under uncertainty, the respondents also displayed more risk-averse decision-making behaviour than anticipated, especially under circumstances of complete uncertainty. The study also shows that men are more likely to behave in a more risk-seeking manner than women are, and that people with a high intuitive thinking style are less risk-averse than people with a low intuitive thinking style. Furthermore, people with a high rational thinking style are more risk-averse than people with a low rational thinking style, and respondents with a high sensation-seeking style make decisions in a more risk-seeking way than respondents with a low sensation-seeking style.@en