Perceived Commitment to a Safety Management System and Its Impact on Safety Culture in Collegiate Flight Programs

A Safety Management System or SMS, is a set of processes and procedures designed to assist members of aviation organizations in identifying hazards, assessing risks, and mitigating those risks (Karanikas et al., 2019). Aviation organizations rely upon a strong safety culture to provide a foundation for managing risks and developing a successful SMS (Robertson, 2018). Robertson (2018) explained that an SMS does not create a culture dedicated to safety but strengthens the existing culture through the elements and processes associated with the four pillars of an SMS: safety policy, risk management, safety assurance, and safety promotion.) The purpose of this study was to explore the connection between the perceived commitment associated with an SMS and the impact it had on the safety culture within collegiate aviation flight programs. Perceived commitment is defined as the shared perceptions that organizational members have toward the overriding priority of the organization’s safety (Beus et al., 2019). Currently, collegiate aviation flight programs are not required by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to have a formal SMS in place. However, many collegiate aviation flight programs have adopted a voluntary SMS to achieve a proactive risk management program (Adjekum, 2014). This research study examined the perceived commitment that members of collegiate flight training programs have toward the elements and processes of SMS, and to determine its impact on safety culture. This qualitative study relied on semi structured individual interviews with collegiate flight program safety officers to provide the necessary data relative to the overarching research question. The findings have implications for collegiate aviation flight programs as well as all aviation organizations, non-collegiate flight schools, risk managers, aviation safety officers, and aviation regulators such as the FAA.