Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Safety Science 45 (2007) 993–1012 www.elsevier.com/locate/ssci 0925-7535/$ - see front matter  2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ssci.2006.09.003 The nature of safety culture: A survey of the state-of-the-art RaWq M. Choudhry a,¤ , Dongping Fang a,1 , Sherif Mohamed b,2 a (Tsinghua-Gammon) Construction Safety Research Center, School of Civil Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China b Center for Infrastructure Engineering and Management, GriYth University, Queensland, Australia Received 18 January 2006; received in revised form 26 September 2006; accepted 28 September 2006 Abstract This paper reviews the literature on safety culture, placing particular focus on research undertaken from 1998 onwards. The term culture is clariWed as it is typically applied to organizations, to safety, and particularly to construction safety. Some clariWcation in terms of positive safety culture, safety culture models, levels of aggregation and safety performance is provided by presenting appropriate empirical evidence and its theoretical developments. In general, safety culture is thought to inXuence employees’ attitudes and behavior in relation to an organization’s ongoing health and safety perfor- mance. Implications for future research in the area are addressed, as in recent years safety culture has become the focus of much attention in all industries, including the construction industry.  2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Safety culture; Organizational culture; Construction safety; Behavior-based safety; Safety climate; Safety management system 1. Introduction In order to contribute to the overall reduction of workplace accidents, workplace safety has been studied from diVerent points of view (Silva et al., 2004). Whether technical or * Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 10 62795113; fax: +86 10 62773661. E-mail addresses: choudhry03@gmail.com (R.M. Choudhry), fangdp@tsinghua.edu.cn (D. Fang), s.mohamed@ griYth.edu.au (S. Mohamed). 1 Tel.: +86 10 62795113; fax: +86 10 62773661. 2 Tel.: +61 7 55528575; fax: +61 7 55528065.