Multi-dimensional measurement perspective in modeling organizational safety risk

There are a number of technical challenges in developing a predictive causal model of organizational safety performance. Among these is the lack of a widely accepted and theoretically sound set of principles on which such model could be developed and validated. In a multidisciplinary effort to explore the feasibility of developing such principles, the authors came to the realization that causal models need to be sensitive to the way the causal factors are measured. This is the focus of the present paper. First, the conceptual relation between theories, measures, and reality are discussed in the context of causal modeling. Next, a new framework for developing organizational safety causal models is briefly described. The purpose is to use the framework to facilitate the discussion on measurement, and propose a multi-dimensional measurement perspective.