Measuring Safeguards Culture Page: 7 of 15
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PNNL-20464
the action; and values that place a priority on the outcome that results from the action. In short, it is the
voluntary actions that demonstrate that regulatory compliance is important, and consequently
performed completely, effectively, and correctly.
It is worth noting that to fully measure the strength of a State's safeguards culture, we must also
examine the systems and structures to see the extent to which they support and reinforce or obstruct and
discourage the desired beliefs and behaviors. As David Nadler and Michael Tushman state in their book
Competing by Design: The Power of Organizational Architecture, "...the greater degree of congruence,
or fit, among the various components, the more effective the organization will be. Put another way, the
degree to
which the strategy, work, people, structure, and culture are smoothly aligned will determine the
organization's ability to compete and succeed."" It is insufficient to examine only the actions taken by
staff to perform their jobs better. It is also important to consider whether there are incentives in place
to reward and encourage similar actions in the future and to discourage actions that would weaken or
jeopardize safeguards performance. The incentive structure is one of the key elements that
institutionalize voluntary actions, thereby giving the concept of safeguards culture the tangibility it
needs to serve as an indicator of proliferation potential.
The following set of metrics is not intended to be comprehensive but is designed to suggest an
approach for measuring safeguards culture. This is similar in concept to the "safety culture ladder" or
the "safety maturity model" developed by the international oil and gas industry.'" We assign values of
1-4 to the metrics, where 1, 2 and 3 indicate compliance-based actions that are performed to obtain a
desired outcome. 1 is the least compliant and 3 is the most compliant with requirements. We assign a
4 to voluntary performance-based actions, which, when performed, indicate desire to obtain the
specific outcome while meeting best practices or high international standards. When applying these
metrics to a country, an analyst could tally the scores and generate an average score. An average
rating above 3 would indicate that the state received a preponderance of 4s, where available,
indicating that the state goes beyond simple requirements and takes additional voluntary actions. Such
a score would provide evidence of a positive safeguards culture in the State.
NEXT STEPS
We welcome feedback on our methodological approach and suggestions for additional metrics that
would be consistent with a positive safeguards culture. Additional research is required to apply these
metrics to actual States to attempt to validate our approach.
CONCLUSION
We have proposed a set of metrics that reflect the cumulative judgment of the two authors. We
recognize that additional metrics are likely to be available that would improve the validity of the
approach. We are convinced however, that the approach to measuring the robustness of a State's
safeguards culture can be an additional useful tool in the development of a Broad Conclusion in the
State Level Approach of a fully information driven safeguards approach.3
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Frazar, Sarah L. & Mladineo, Stephen V. Measuring Safeguards Culture, report, July 19, 2011; Richland, Washington. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc843202/m1/7/: accessed April 22, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.