Learning from errors is essential to ensuring organizational safety and improving levels of performance. We consider the interaction between cognition, emotions, and safety culture in the context of a field study on learning from errors in the Italian Air Force. We find that errors often stem from sequential action chains that are concealed in habitual behavior and that become visible only when unforeseen circumstances occur. Furthermore, cognitive appraisal of risky situations triggers emotions of variable intensity that, when rationalized retrospectively, promote the internalization of lessons learned. Finally, cognitive and emotional experiences of errors are grounded in the broader safety culture of an organization, which provides a supportive context for error reporting and encourages the sharing of information and knowledge about error experiences. The analysis further suggests that cognition, emotion, and safety culture interact through sensemaking processes that inform the construction of errors and affect learning outcomes.

When an accident happens in an organization, two different approaches are possible to explain its origin and dynamics. The first approach, called individual blame logic aims at finding the guilty individuals. The second approach, called organizational function logic aims to identify the organizational factors that favoured the occurrence of the event. This article compares the two different logics of inquiry, the consequences that they produce, in particular in the case of accidents caused by unintentional actions. Though favoured by the scientists, the organizational function logic approach is in real life usually beaten by the individual blame logic. Reviewing the literature, this article brings together the arguments for using the organizational function logic from the perspective that learning from accidents is necessary to prevent them from happening again.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract