Resilience is becoming a prevalent agenda in safety research and organisational practice. In this study we examine how the peer-reviewed safety science literature (a) formulates the rationale behind the study of resilience; (b) constructs resilience as a scientific object; and (c) constructs and locates the resilient subject. The results suggest that resilience engineering scholars typically motivate the need for their studies by referring to the inherent complexities of modern sociotechnical systems; complexities that make these systems inherently risky. The object of resilience then becomes the capacity to adapt to such emerging risks in order to guarantee the success of the inherently risky system. In the material reviewed, the subject of resilience is typically the individual, either at the sharp end or at higher managerial levels. The individual is called-upon to adapt in the face of risk to secure the continuous performance of the system. Based on the results from how resilience has been introduced in safety sciences we raise three ethical questions for the field to address: (1) should resilience be seen as people thriving despite of, or because of, risk?; (2) should resilience theory form a basis for moral judgement?; and finally (3) how much should resilience be approached as a trait of the individual?

Through a case study, this article explores a number of theoretical issues related to the often taken for granted relationship between simulator fidelity and the quality and transferability of training in complex, dynamic, safety-critical settings. A counterexample based on mid-fidelity simulation is presented and the assumed coincidence of fidelity and validity is tested, that is the study tests the equation of constructed photorealism (built to mimic reality) and effective development of the competence that operators require to manage situations that involve underspecified problems, time pressure constraints and complex group interaction. The article concludes that such competence development cannot rely only on highly context-specific (photorealistic) environments. Further, it will be argued that lower-fidelity simulation, when appropriately designed, can provide competence development with pedagogical and economic advantages.

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