Assessing the relationship between organizational management factors and a resilient safety culture in a collegiate aviation program with Safety Management Systems (SMS)

Extant research advocates for assessing and continuously improving resilient safety culture in high-reliability organizations (HROs) such as aviation that has a fully functional Safety Management Systems (SMS). Perceptions on the relationship between four (4) organizational management factors (Principles, Policy, Procedures, Practices) and resilient safety culture in a collegiate aviation program was assessed using an online survey instrument drafted using Reason (2011) concept on safety resilience. Sample was drawn from aviation students, flight instructors, faculty and administrators. Structural Equation Model (SEM) and Causal Path Analysis (CPA) techniques were used to assess conceptual models. Results suggest good reliability and construct validity for survey instrument. All the measurement models had acceptable fit based on various goodness-of-fit indices. The results suggest all four management factors had significant predictive relationship with resilient safety culture. Practices had the weakest predictive relationship and Policy had the highest. Procedures strongly mediated path between Policies and Practices and there was no significant causal relationship between Principles and Practices. Results suggest that more focus should be placed on resilient safety practices in the collegiate aviation program. Significant benefit of this study is the validation of an instrument that explores the relationship between resilient safety culture and organizational management factors and adds to literature on resilient safety culture in collegiate aviation programs. Future studies using this survey instrument and models in other collegiate aviation programs, airlines and airports are highly recommended.