Cyber and Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, Explosives Challenges by Maurizio Martellini & Andrea Malizia

Author:Maurizio Martellini & Andrea Malizia
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

4 Bio-risk Management Culture

The BRMC design is based on the organizational-culture model developed by Professor Edgar Schein from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Schein proposes that culture in organizations can exist in layers comprised of underlying assumptions, espoused values and artifacts. Some of the layers are directly observable while others are invisible and have to be deduced from what can be observed in the organization [12].

Cultures are formed by underlying assumptions about reality. In practical terms, this means that an organization will display observable artifacts and behaviors that relate to what it assumes about a variety of phenomena, such as vulnerability to an event. All of these assumptions or beliefs ultimately manifest themselves in observable forms such as policies, procedures, and behaviors.

The next layer of culture in organizations is espoused values- the principles which leadership claims to believe in and requires the organization to display in their actions. Culture predominantly manifests itself through its artifacts which is the third and observable layer. Thus, the protection equipment, people’s behaviors, written documents, and work processes are all artifacts of the culture.

Schein’s model was successfully used in the 1990s to develop nuclear safety culture following the Chernobyl accident in 1986, which amply demonstrated serious gaps in safety compliance and a disastrous failure of the human factor. Given the many synergies between safety and security as part of overall organizational culture, Schein’s model provided a ready-made analytical framework for exploring and modeling nuclear security culture. Schein defined culture as “a pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems” [12].

Applied to security as a subset of organizational culture, its essence is jointly learned relevant values, beliefs, and assumptions that become shared and taken for granted as a facility continues to successfully operate at an acceptable risk and compliance level. To paraphrase Edgar Schein, they became shared, sustainable and taken for granted as the new members of the organization realize that the beliefs, values, and assumptions prevailing among the leaders and the staff led to organizational success and so must be “right” [13].

The BRMC concept integrates both safety and security as well as bioethical and established norms of social responsibility. Reinforcing the norms of responsible conduct in life sciences is critical to: (1) counteracting the diversion of biological materials, equipment, or technologies for harmful purposes, and (2) fostering the long term health security and wellness of the public, animals, plants, the environment, and the economy. BRMC is defined as an assembly of beliefs, attitudes, and patterns of behavior of individuals and organizations that can support, complement or enhance operating procedures, rules, and practices as well as professional standards and ethics designed to prevent the loss, theft, misuse, and diversion of biological agents, related materials, technology or equipment, and the unintentional or intentional exposure to (or release from biocontainment of) biological agents.

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