Regulatory culture - A case study in Finland

A case study to investigate the organizational culture of the regulatory authority was conducted at the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority of Finland´s (STUK) Nuclear Reactor Regulation (YTO) - Department. Organizational culture is defined as a pattern of shared basic assumptions that are partially unconscious. A model of the demands of regulatory work was conceptualized and used in assessing the characteristics of the regulatory culture. A combination of quantitative and qualitative methods was used in the research. Based on the results of the case study, we propose a model of the demands of regulatory culture, comprising of three occasionally conflicting roles: the authority role, the expert role and the public role. The implications of these roles and their conflicting demands are also discussed.