Cultural backgrounds of employees´ safety behaviors: Coding and cluster analysis on participant observation

Safety culture is a social control power in hazardous industrial systems. This study aims to explore the characteristics of safety culture in China. The 128 behavior incidents of employees´ routine work were gained through 103 days´ participant observation in a state owned petrochemical plant. Cluster analysis was conducted on the selected 109 incidents, and finally assembling them into 4 categories according to five conceptual bipolar variables. Results indicated that: (1) Stern management is not able to control employees´ safety behaviors; (2) Employees usually behave conforming to the norm formed by the working group and judge things according to the situation; (3) Employees´ abidance of rules depends on different conditions; and (4) Authority´s power is also a factor to safety behaviors. Although it works in certain tense, it cannot bring effective influence to the behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs of employees.