Scale development of safety management system evaluation for the airline industry

The airline industry relies on the implementation of Safety Management System (SMS) to integrate safety policies and augment safety performance at both organizational and individual levels. Although there are various degrees of SMS implementation in practice, a comprehensive scale measuring the essential dimensions of SMS is still lacking. This paper thus aims to develop an SMS measurement scale from the perspective of aviation experts and airline managers to evaluate the performance of company's safety management system, by adopting Schwab's (1980) three-stage scale development procedure. The results reveal a five-factor structure consisting of 23 items. The five factors include documentation and commands, safety promotion and training, executive management commitment, emergency preparedness and response plan and safety management policy. The implications of this SMS evaluation scale for practitioners and future research are discussed.

► This paper develops a comprehensive measurement scale to evaluate SMS performance from the perspective of the airline industry.
► The qualitative and quantitative validities of the evaluation scale are ensured.
► The success of SMS implementation requires all employees participating in the programs.
► This scale may be applied as both a reference and tool to conduct the employee surveys regarding SMS performance.