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The purpose of this paper is to investigate how one hospital safety coordinator socially constructs a complete environment of care. Specifically, it applies Shotter's “practical author” framework to examine the author‐response interaction between the safety coordinator and other mid‐level supervisors.

Qualitative methodology is employed to examine this authorship. Data include printed materials employees receive upon hire, an observation of an environment of care orientation presentation, and semi‐structured interviews with the safety coordinator and mid‐level supervisors.

The paper reveals how the safety coordinator uses a variety of rhetorical strategies to balance the tensions between mandating compliance with environment of care requirements and facilitating buy‐in to the idea of compliance as a moral and ethical imperative. This creates an ethos among the employees where they feel authorized to go beyond the requirements and act on their own to construct a safer culture.

The paper has multiple practical and theoretical implications that may be useful to health care and other organizations when examining the broader need for a complete, supportive environment where employees not only comply with but actually live and believe in the values of their organizations' cultures. A limitation is that employee perspective and behavior are primarily inferred based on supervisor reports.

The paper extends theory on communication and developing organizational environments and provides practical application possibilities for organizations.