Compliance as a Foundation, Vigilance as a Mindset: Cultivating a Sense of Vulnerability for an Enhanced Safety Culture in the Oil and Gas Industry

Abstract The continuous review of safety culture in industrial settings including the oil and gas industry is critical for reducing incidents and promoting operational resilience. One of the key areas of this review is the sense of vulnerability among individuals and organizations. Traditional safety approaches often focus on a calculative model, where risks are mitigated through predefined protocols and compliance-driven measures. However, cultivating an awareness of vulnerability will catalyse a shift from the reactive, rule-based mindset to a more proactive and alert safety culture. This paper explores how cultivating a sense of vulnerability is transitioning the safety culture from a calculative stage, focused on compliance, rule-following and over-reliance on built systems, to a proactive and alert state where safety is deeply embedded in behaviours, decisions, and operations. The sense of vulnerability is critical in preventing catastrophic incidents, as evidenced by historical disasters such as the Deepwater Horizon explosion (2010) and the Piper Alpha disaster (1988), which highlighted systemic failures in safety culture. Lessons from these incidents highlight how overconfidence and the lack of perceived vulnerability contributed to some of the worst industrial accidents in history. By integrating psychological theories, such as the Health Belief Model and Risk Homeostasis Theory, with empirical observations, a comprehensive framework for leveraging vulnerability awareness as a tool for incident prevention is developed. The concept of High Reliability Organizations (HROs) is discussed, highlighting their emphasis on continuous vigilance, learning from near-misses, and prioritizing safety over operational pressures. These organizations exemplify how a strong sense of vulnerability fosters collective mindfulness, ensuring that risks are mitigated before incidents occur. This study underscores the importance of integrating vulnerability awareness into safety management systems to achieve a safer, more resilient industrial environment.