Just culture's "line in the sand" is a shifting one; an empirical investigation of culpability determination
Abstract Just culture has been propounded as a necessary part of safety management to ensure open reporting. However, research has focused on the measurement and benefits of just culture without examination of the processes of culpability determination in organizations. An online survey asked 3136 aviation maintenance personnel from one company to judge the appropriate level of discipline in three incident scenarios. Five pieces of "mitigating" contextual information were subsequently presented per scenario and the participants given the opportunity to re assess their response. Participants distinguished between scenarios, determining discipline in line broadly with just culture culpability principles. Most pieces of additional information resulted in lowered discipline levels. The pattern of response to the sequence of information was similar across geographical, job role and level of experience variables, but the level of initial and final discipline proposed differed. North American sites were more severe than European, engineers and managers more lenient than operational staff and experienced personnel more lenient than their juniors. The findings demonstrate that, at least in this organization, participants think about culpability broadly in line with just culture ideology, but that who gets to draw the line (Dekker, 2009) is critical. The findings are also broadly in line with the Path Model of Blame (Malle et al. 2014) though it is a descriptive model of blame which is less elaborate and nuanced than the prescriptive ones of just culture (Reason, 1997; Baines Simmons Limited, 2011) The study provides a foundation for the empirical investigation of just culture.