The influence of Indonesian national and military organisational culture on safety management systems

This paper examines the influence of Indonesian national and military organisational culture on the adoption and implementation of the Safety Management System (SMS) that is predominantly based on Western concepts of management. The influence of national culture on a military organisational culture, the perception and behaviour of the military members, and how management handles safety issues in the organisation were investigated and identified. To discover and understand the basic assumptions of a culture that drive people to a particular behaviour, a qualitative research design, encompassing multiple case studies, was adopted for this study. Analysis of the findings shows that the Indonesian military culture has been much influenced by its national culture. Moreover, the unique characteristics of the Indonesian national and military culture have significant influences on military SMS. Harmony, politeness, hierarchical systems, authoritarian structures, the military class system and the ‘can-do’ culture are some of the cultural factors that impede the promotion of safety culture as well as the implementation of the SMS within the Indonesian military organisation. In addition to those cultural factors, the lack of safety education and training has created an environment in which individual safety awareness is disregarded. The results of this study demonstrate that cultural factors are one of the crucial factors that must be integrated into the organisation’s system in order to achieve safety.