Safety performance measurement in collectivized oil companies in China: Contribution of leading indicators to lagging indicators

With the collectivization of the Chinese oil industry, oil companies have been expanding in size. However, the intensified differences in the safety performance of subsidiaries have severely hindered the collaborative man-agement of the headquarters. Understanding the safety status of each member is urgent for parent companies and their subsidiaries to identify gaps and make improvements. A unified set of safety performance indicators and a practical measurement tool are essential for the Chinese oil industry. Hence, this study identified a set of safety performance indicators encompassing both leading and lagging indicators using data envelopment analysis (DEA) and entropy weight method (EWM) to reveal the critical factors affecting the safety performance of the oil industry. A total of 300 front-line workers from eight subsidiaries of an oil company participated in the survey. The identified indicators were preliminarily weighted using EWM. Then, DEA was employed to measure the safety performance of the eight subsidiaries, demonstrating that management commitment was the most crucial factor in distinguishing safety performance; safety culture was more differentiated than risk management. Safety performance was not entirely positively correlated with safety investments, but the reasonable allocation of safety resources played a vital role. In addition, the weaknesses in each subsidiary's safety management were identified, and the quantitative effects of each leading indicator on safety performance were obtained.

Automated summary

With the growth of the Chinese oil industry, the differences in safety performance among subsidiaries have hindered headquarters' collaborative management. A unified set of safety performance indicators and measurement tool are essential. This study used DEA and EWM to identify critical factors affecting safety performance of the oil industry and measured safety performance of eight subsidiaries. The study found that management commitment was crucial, safety culture was more differentiated than risk management, and reasonable allocation of safety resources played a vital role.