Safety culture: philosopher's stone or man of straw?

This introductory paper to the special issue on Safety Culture considers so me of the key issues relating to the nature, measurement and utility of thi s concept. It argues that there are many important questions still unanswer ed: what is safety culture and what is its theoretical basis (the question of definition), is it synonymous with safety climate, what are the essentia l characteristics of a 'good' safety culture and how might they be best mea sured, what are the reliability, validity and utility of existing measures of safety culture, and how does the concept contribute-if at all-to good sa fety systems and performance! Can an organization's safety culture be relat ed to additional parameters (such as accident and incident performance) whi ch are judged both within and outside the organization by the full range of stake-holders? Finally, the authors consider future issues and the future direction of work in this area.