Overview of the Forum

National culture has been discussed as one of the clues for understanding culture for safety since the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant accident (hereinafter referred to as the “1F accident”). The discussion was triggered by the Chairman's message in the report from National Diet of Japan Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission1), which pointed out that “This was a disaster made in Japan. Its fundamental causes are to be found in the ingrained conventions of Japanese culture.” After the 1F accident, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued a leaflet entitled “Culture for Safety,” which emphasized Safety Culture as “Culture for Safety ”2). The leaflet states that “safety is an outcome of an organization’s culture” and “the goal for any organization is to create an organizational culture that is working to achieve safety”.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development/Nuclear Energy Agency (OECD/NEA) and World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) have launched Country-Specific Safety Culture Forums (CSSCF) to explore country-specific cultures since 2018. The CSSCF has been held in Sweden (2018), Finland (2019), and Canada (2023), and each report summarizing national cultural traits and the impact on safety culture has been published. Japan is the fourth country to host the CSSCF that was held on December 14-15, 2023. A launch event for the reports was held in July 2024 and the report was published (in English and Japanese) 3). 

The CSSCF report was created based on the data analysis from a preliminary interview survey of the regulator and operators in the nuclear industry (involving a total of 368 participants from all 12 Japanese operators and the nuclear regulatory authority (NRA)) and a 2-day forum (attended by 107 participants from NRA, all operators and others). In the 2-day CSSCF forum, the event scenario was used for a high-pressure injection pump fire event at a fictitious nuclear power plant, which was divided into 10 scenes from prior to the event to the interaction between the regulator and the operator after the event. The results of NEA's preliminary interview survey were incorporated into the role-play scripts, and the role-play actors were performed by the regulator and operator participants. Participants reflected the national context in a three-step process that consisted of “Role-playing Observation”, “Group Reflection,” and “Overall Reflection” divided into four parts of the 10 scenes. The NEA members instructed the participants to participate as individuals to allow for frank discussion, and to refrain from stating their affiliation or organization name, and from exchanging business cards among participants. Reflection focused on such questions as “Do Japanese act like role-players?” etc. A total of 11 Japanese national culture traits were identified in the CSSCF final report: “Peer Pressure,” “Majime(diligence),” “Fear of failure,” “Hoshu-teki(conservativeness),” “Wa(harmony),” “Don’t speak out,” “Collectivism,” “Ambiguity,” “Consideration,” “Nenko-joretsu(respect for seniority),” and “Okami-ishiki(obedience to superiors). In addition, specific examples are given of how these national culture traits affect six safety culture dimensions (“Accountability and Responsibility”, “Roles and Responsibilities”, “Continuous Learning and Improvement”, “Decision Making”, “Resources, Capacity Building and Training”, and “Communication”) both positively and negatively. The importance of psychological safety is also mentioned in the report from national culture such as “Fear of failure,”and “Don’t speak out”. Psychological safety means a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking. It means a sense of confidence that the team will not embarrass, reject, or punish someone for speaking up. This term is proposed by Edmonson (1999) who studies organizational behavior4).

Major Findings from Having Participated in the Forum

The author participated in the two-day forum as a safety culture expert from the NRA and felt that participants discussed freely in each group and in the overall review, concentrating on each other's experiences and practices without being restricted by position or organizational status. As mentioned earlier, a dialog without exchanging business cards or detailed self-introductions might be effective to promote a psychologically safe environment.  The forum included participants from abroad, and as the discussions in the psychologically safe environment progressed,　and participants actively sought input from outside parties during the session of overall reflection.

On the other hand, in the situation that requires individual resilience skills under unexpected conditions, which was the situation in the scenario of this role play, the environment would be one in which psychological safety is not sufficient. Through reflections during the forum, the author had the impression that human and organizational relationships and organizational structure would take precedence over one's own position and role responsibilities in such environment. For example, when upper management makes a radical cost-oriented decision, even if there are doubts about canceling a planned facility upgrade without conducting a risk assessment, etc., the staff members may value their relationship with their manager and may be willing to accept the decision. If the staff members identify an unusual vibration issue with equipment that does not expect, the concern may be raised to middle management, but the middle management may not communicate the concern to upper management due to the importance of their personal relationships with upper management. When making decisions among staff in an insufficient psychologically safe environment, the author believes they are likely to follow the existing internal rules (e.g., corrective action programs, internal regulations, etc.) rather than discussing various opinions including third-party organization rules (e.g., external standards, etc.). The author also believes that the same could be said of inter-organizational relationships between regulators and operators. If a psychologically safe environment is not established, operators may focus on maintaining inter-organizational relationships. For example, while the findings identified by the regulator are immediately accepted by the operator, concerns and other issues by the operator may not be communicated up to the regulators. Creating a psychologically safe environment is important for safety in general and may not be country specific, but the author actually felt its importance in several occasions in the Forum.

From a research perspective, leadership in the workplace is important to create an environment of psychological safety in which the staff members can express their opinions and mistakes without hesitation within the organization for fostering and maintaining a healthy safety culture. However, even if psychological safety is ensured within an organization, it is difficult to fully discuss concerns and other issues without personal accountability. Being accountable means to take personal ownership for safety and as such, demonstrate a questioning attitude by examining and challenging safety policies, procedures, behavior and norms. Therefore, there is a need to develop competency in both leadership of managers and accountability of staff for safety. Focusing on the relationship between regulators and operators, a trust-based dialogue between regulators and operators is important for regulators to monitor and understand the normal day-to-day performance fluctuations of operators and promote continuous improvement. Research is also needed on developing a leadership competency of regulators to ensure a psychologically safe environment among regulatory body and operators, and on regulatory oversight to operator’s accountability for safety.

References

[1] The National Diet of Japan Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission, “The Official of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission”, The National Diet of Japan, 2012.

[2] IAEA, “Culture for Safety”, culture_for_safety_leaflet.pdf .

[3] OECD/NEA, “Country-Specific Safety Culture Forum: Japan”, NEA No. 7680, 2024.

[4] Edmondson AC., “Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams”, Adm. Sci. Q. 44(2):350–83, 1999.