The Correlation Relationship between Concepts of Learning Organization and Safety Culture in Iran’s Nuclear and Radiological Industries

The formation and evolution of culture in organizations are related to the learning experiences of their members over time. In this regard, the present study was conducted to empirically investigate the correlation relationship between the Learning Organization (LO) and safety culture concepts in Iran’s nuclear and radiological industries.

A theoretical model concerning the connections between seven facets of LO and safety culture was proposed. It was then empirically tested with a structural equation modeling PLS analysis of a survey data set of 388 observations, collected from the radiation workers of 45 organizations in 4 Iranian industrial groups i.e. medical radiation, industrial radiography, nuclear installations, and radiological installations. Yang’s DLOQ questionnaire in 2004 and IAEA’s SCPQ-LH questionnaire in 2017 were used to measure LO and safety culture, respectively.

According to the findings of this study, being a LO could explain 52% of the variance in safety culture. Besides, it was observed that the strength of this relationship between four different subpopulations of Iran’s radiological and nuclear industries due to their different contexts, had significant differences and they vary from 34% for industrial radiography to 65% for nuclear installations.

The existence of LO conditions in the working environment is linked to high safety culture. Thus, the LO can be joined to the toolbox of consultants, managers, and other organizational developers attempting to advance the conditions for safety at work.