Safety Practices: Espoused Theory and Practice

Abstract

The aim of this chapter will be to consider how safety practices are learned and carried out in situ. The employees at the production site having been newly acquired are required to learn new ways of practising safety. The chapter explores the espoused safety narrative and culture of the organisation and the reality of the everyday practice of safety and how managers, in particular, re-learn to practise safety and reconcile the difference between espoused safety and practice. The chapter will draw upon Communities of Practice theory, especially the ideas of noncanonical communities (Brown and Duguid, Organizational learning and communities of practice: Toward a unified view of working, learning and innovation. In E. L. Lesser, M. A. Fontaine, & J. A. Slusher (Eds.), Knowledge and communities (pp. 99–121). Oxford: Butterworth Heinemann, 1991) and newcomers as legitimate peripheral participants (Lave and Wenger, Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) and how this might inform SasP.