Culture and safety culture are misunderstood and abused terms, according to Professor Andrew Hopkins speaking at the SIA Safety Convention in Sydney today. His perspective as a social scientist reinforces many of the speakers on disruption at yesterday’s sessions. If culture is the characteristic of individuals, culture is transferable or portable outside the workplace but …
The latest Andrew Hopkins book steers clear of analysing corporate leadership, and this is a good thing. Australian National University sociologist, Andrew Hopkins, has established an international reputation for his enlightening analyses of the failures of organisational culture in major disasters but his latest book, Disastrous Decisions: The Human and Organisational Causes of the Gulf of Mexico Blowout, purposely … Continue reading “Latest Andrew Hopkins book focusses on engineering decisions”
FutureMedia has finally issued a clarification on its claim that Professor Andrew Hopkins was nominated for the US Commission of Inquiry into the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill as discussed at SafetyAtWorkBlog on 3 June 2010. It advises that it took its nomination story from comments by the “former Research Director of the US Chemical Safety … Continue reading “Clarification on Andrew Hopkins and the US Commission of Inquiry”
October 2008 was the tenth anniversary of the explosion at Longford gas plant in Australia that resulted in many injuries, two fatalities and almost two weeks of severely interrupted gas supply to the State of Victoria. The Longford explosion at an Exxon-Mobil site resulted in a Royal Commission, an OHS prosecution and a record fine. Recently it … Continue reading “Longford explosion anniversary, Andrew Hopkins and a new book”
It is always good to start a piece of writing with an attention-grabbing punch. Professor Andrew Hopkins‘ latest research paper does just that in his analysis of the 2020 Anglo-American Grosvenor coal mine explosion. He wrote: “Senior management at Anglo believed that safety was never sacrificed to production. Their view was safety and productivity went …
Professor Andrew Hopkins‘ latest book “Sacrificing Safety – Lessons for Chief Executives” complements Queensland’s Board of Inquiry into the Grosvenor mine fire in which five workers were severely burnt, a significant workplace incident for which the company, Anglo American, will not be prosecuted. Hopkins explains that the Board of Inquiry chose not to investigate the …
One of the major influencers on occupational health and safety (OHS) management in Australian has been Andrew Hopkins. His influence comes from a combination of being outside the formal OHS profession and establishing a platform that is inclusive of information from a range of sources. In short he is a sociologist. Hopkins’ latest book has …
