Dr Eric Wigglesworth Memorial Lecture

The Australian Institute of Health & Safety invites you to attend the 2020 Dr. Eric Wigglesworth AM Memorial Lecture on Tuesday 26 May at Rivers Edge to hear Andrew Hopkins present his lecture: How Structure creates culture

Organisations sometimes set out to create cultures of safety using the hearts and minds approach, that is, running workshops for employees encouraging them to think differently about safety.

In contrast, the claim here is that key to developing a culture of safety is having the right organisational structure. This means ensuring that the people with special responsibility for safety are sufficiently senior and sufficiently powerful to be able to discharge their responsibilities effectively.   This is illustrated using the Columbia space shuttle accident.  The lecture includes a case study of BP, looking at its organisational structure before and after the Deepwater Horizon accident.

The lecture concludes with some remarks about how even the best structures can be undermined by corporate incentives payments that focus on production, profit and cost reduction.

About the event:
The Dr Eric Wigglesworth AM Memorial Lecture is presented in conjunction with the AIHS’s Annual Education Awards. This year, the lecture coincides with the AIHS National Health & Safety Conference which will be held from 27-28 May at the Melbourne Convention Centre. Now in its tenth year, the Dr Eric Wigglesworth AM Memorial Lecture is an annual event presented by the Australian Institute of Health & Safety. The event was established to recognise the pioneering contributions and engagement of Dr Wigglesworth in the field of occupational health and safety.
Andrew Hopkins is an Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the Australian National University in Canberra. He was an expert witness at the Royal Commission into the 1998 Exxon gas plant explosion near Melbourne. He was a consultant to the US Chemical Safety Board in its investigation of the BP Texas City Refinery disaster of 2005,...
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AIHS Member: $70+GST AIHS Corporate Members: $70+GST AIOH Members: $70+GST HFESA Members: $70+GST Non-Members: $85+GST
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