Human and organizational factors (HOFs) are important causes of accidents. As the design of technological equipment becomes more and more safe, the causes of accidents are more likely to be attributed to HOFs. The offshore drilling is, for instance, controlled by safety barriers that are dominantly dependent on HOFs. In a dynamic and volatile environment, every organization goes through a drifting process where the kind of logic of action taken depends on the contextual and temporal factors, the tightness of the coupling, and the complexity of the situation. The drifting process both affects and is affected by the management structure, the communication systems, the kinds of competence possessed, external pressures, and whether it is possible to comply with organizational procedures and whether these procedures are in accordance with regulatory requirements. These areas are important to examine to improve understanding of contribution of HOFs in major accidents. The knowledge and detail understanding of the contribution of HOFs to the offshore accidents provides new insights as well as practical guidelines for how to understand, assess and manage (potential) hazards and unforeseen surprises in a practical operational setting.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.