Culture, crises and campaigns: a comparison

The focus of this Ph.D. project is HSE culture in the petroleum industry. The principal objective of the project is to get a deeper knowledge of cultures, crises of campaigns in the Norwegian petroleum industry. This knowledge will be the basis for sugges ting measures aimed at improving the HSE standard of the Norwegian petroleum industry. The project will be based upon and continue the theoretical and empirical insights gained by the project "HSE culture in the petroleum industry" at the Centre for Innov ation, Culture and Technology at the University of Oslo. This Ph.D. project will, however, draw on new concepts and perspectives that concretize and specify the concept of HSE culture. Several notable researchers on HSE and culture point out that studies of HSE culture should focus on work groups. The first sub goal of the project is to identify and compare the HSE-culture of work three groups on Norwegian offshore platforms (crane operators, process operators and managers). The second sub goal of the pro ject is to identify and compare the role of culture in relation to crises/accidents on Norwegian offshore installations in recent years. The project will compare the role of culture in relation to the blow out on Snorre A and the huge gas leak on Visund. Most of the companies involved in the Norwegian petroleum industry have, over the last few years, implemented behavioral and cultural campaigns, attempting to enhance HSE. The third sub goal of this project is to compare the implementation and consequence s of a comprehensive behavior/culture campaign and a smaller ad-hoc program in terms of implementation and consequences. The fourth sub goal of this project is to develop measures aimed at improving the HSE-culture of work groups (crane operators, process operators and leaders) on offshore platforms. These measures will be based on the analysis of the cultures of the group, the analysis of the two campaigns and literature on measures that are "culturally aware".