Hearing conservation culture change process over 40-year, evidence from a multinational company

Introduction
This study addresses the process of change in hearing conservation culture through the history of one multinational company’s hearing conservation program (HCP) in Korea. The interactions of key factors influencing the effects of noise induced hearing loss prevention programs will be discussed.

Methods
Status of a safety and health system is described with a simple perspective on risk management; why, who, what, and how. The change in the status and consequent stages of system change is described based on Schein’s three stage model of unfreezing-changing-refreezing to analyze the history of the company’s HCP. Each stage was analyzed using four factors: risk perception (why), key role players (who), program and effects (what), and driving forces (how).

Results
Risk recognition of occupational noise exposure was observed to fall into the following five categories: Stage 1, noise was not recognized as an occupational hazard. Stage 2, noise is a hazard, but its production is inevitable. Stage 3, noise exposure needs to be managed. Stage 4, noise should be controlled as a risk. Stage 5, the risk of noise exposure should be prevented. In this change process over stages, the implementation of the HCP in stages 2 and 3 was made possible by external driving forces, such as the reinforcement of national regulations and company policy, but the actual change in hearing protection in Stage 4 was only brought by the changes in managers’ risk perception that noise should be controlled.

Discussion
The history of the HCP at this company illustrates the process of change and how the programs involved, and their effects, are made possible by external driving forces and the risk perceptions of managers. The study of the culture change process, unfreezing-changing-refreezing, must be considered in relation to occupational health to prevent NIHL.