# A game of adoption – but playing by whose rules?

*Busch, Curșeu & Neessen · Culture & Context, Critique & Boundary · Safety Science, Vol. 198, June 2026, 107145 · 2026 · Open access*

An integrative systematic literature review of the factors that drive safety professionals to adopt particular safety concepts — covering 107 papers from 1990–2023. Argues that adoption is not a purely rational or evidence-based process but is shaped by institutional isomorphism, affective dynamics, professional identity, and the 'safety market'. Introduces a multilevel conceptual model integrating intrinsic concept characteristics with individual, interpersonal, institutional and wider infrastructural influences. Explicitly names psychological safety (alongside just culture and safety culture) as an example of a safety concept subject to fashion dynamics — adopted for reasons beyond safety improvement, including legitimacy, professional identity, and normative conformity. The 'safety market' framing — in which concepts are produced, disseminated, and adopted through a complex ecology of academics, consultants, regulators, and organisations — directly parallels the enclosure and commodification arguments in Tom's work on how PS has been narrowed and depoliticised.

- **This page:** https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/busch-curseu-neessen-2026/
- **View the source paper:** https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925753526000366
- **Interactive map:** https://explore.psychsafety.com/?mode=papers&node=busch-curseu-neessen-2026

## Connected concepts (11)

- [Language and Symbolic Power](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/bourdieu-1991.md) (paper)
- [The Forms of Capital](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/bourdieu-1986.md) (paper)
- [PS is Political](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/psychological-safety-is-political.md)
- [Psychological Safety Comes of Age: Observed Themes in an Established Literature](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/edmondson-bransby-2023.md) (paper)
- [Psychological Safety: A Systematic Review of the Literature](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/newman-donohue-eva-2017.md) (paper)
- [Psychological Safety: The History, Renaissance, and Future of an Interpersonal Construct](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/edmondson-lei-2014.md) (paper)
- [History of PS](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/the-history-of-psychological-safety.md)
- [Not Same for Everyone](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/psychological-safety-isnt-the-same-for-everyone.md)
- [Too Much PS?](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/can-workplaces-have-too-much-psychological-safety.md)
- [Five Pillars Critique](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/the-5-pillars-of-psychological-safety-a-critical-review.md)
- [We Don't Need PS](https://explore.psychsafety.com/n/we-dont-need-psychological-safety.md)