Corporate Experiences of Zero-Harm Culture in India: A Qualitative Survey

Abstract

Based on literature reviews and field visits to 10 project sites across India during 2023–24 and interactions with a sample of 480 managers, this article depicts a host of experiences of implementing zero-harm culture in Indian corporates carried out as part of a longitudinal national research. Seven themes were identified based on this qualitative survey. Change in positive safety culture if implemented wholeheartedly with proper methodology is not only incremental, but exponential. Top managements’ concerns are to understand certain issues clearly before they introduce any safety culture intervention in their organisation or units. Personal safety values of employees differ from those of professional safety culture. Safety culture is not a deal or a benefit or a tool but a value for life. Any distractions that halt safety culture need to be controlled. Companies need to be aware whether the safety violations or fatalities at workplaces are ethical scandals. Zero-harm cultural transformation prerequisites meeting certain challenges. It is important to strengthen beliefs amongst corporates that the zero-harm based safety culture is not a pot of religious stories or flowery contents, but a set of behavioural science interventions. Qualitative data has added a special value to this paper.

Keywords: Zero-Harm Culture, Indian Corporates, Safety, Business, BBS

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