Using Binding Communication for Risk Management Training in the industrial Chinese context

Training is now considered the most commonly used way to learn and achieve proper risk management techniques, by making people aware of their various safety measures. We have thought deeply about safety behaviours related to industrial risk management and we have focused on the actions that are likely to make them emerge, mainly by risk representation (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974 ; Slovic & al., 2004). We have built a behaviour production model, focusing on operational goals and based on a cognitive and affective approach coupled with a situational approach. We therefore called upon binding communication (link between persuasive communication and commitment theory) (Witte & Allen, 2000 ; Joule, Girandola & Bernard, 2007). Risk management training should be a specifically designed process instead of a generalist informative tool. When people switch into a behavioural mode, they become actual ‘actors’ of risk management. As a result, we have designed a dedicated risk management training programme for a French industrial group based in China with the aim of changing its “safety culture”. In this paper we present some points of this action research (Lewin, 1947) seen in China today.