Safe operation as a social construct

Abstract

Empirical work on organizations that manage com plex, potentially hazardous technical operations with a surprisingly low rate of serious incidents shows that operational safety is more than the managem ent or avoidance of risk or error. Safety so de® ned is an ongoing intersubjective construct not readily measured in terms of safety cultures, structures, functions, or other commonly used descriptors of technical or organizational attributes that fail fully to take into account collective as well as individual agency. In the cases that the author has studied, it is represented by the interactive dynam ic between operators and managers, as well as their engagement with operational and organizational conditions. The maintenance of safe operation so de® ned is an interactive, dynam ic and comm unicative act, hence it is particularly vulnerable to disruption or distortion by well-meant but imperfectly informed interventions aimed at eliminating or reducing`human error' that do not take into account the importance of the processes by which the construction of safe operation is created and maintained.

Negative Knowledge: Understanding Professional Learning and Expertise

“…goal achievement, survivability and return on assets). The results, which are consonant with those of a number of other studies (Edmondson 1996;Helmreich and Merritt 2000;Rochlin 1999), support the assumption that the availability of negative knowledge increases efficiency on an organizational level. Although these conclusions cannot be generalized to the individual level, they encourage further investigations about what effects transfer.…”

“…As advanced by a number of scholars (e.g. Frese 1991Frese , 1995Perrow 1984;Reason 1990;Rochlin 1999), it seems impossible to completely prevent human error in work life, because complex human action such as is conducted by professionals is prone to errors. This raises the question how individuals, faced with a constant risk of going wrong in their actions and decisions, can ever realise certainty and self-assuredness in their professional practice.…”

“…Such critique does not fully recognize the potential of the concept. At each workplace, processes of negotiation take place between individuals through which (explicit or implicit) criteria are developed that determine what is accepted as proficient and inadequate practice (Rochlin 1999). Conceptualizing knowledge as being "negative" means putting it in relation to these criteria as well as to the social processes in which they are established.…”

Second victims, organizational resilience and the role of hospital administration

“…For those whose research spans different safety-critical domains -healthcare, nuclear power, aviation, rail, chemical process control -one of the most vexing questions is what accounts for the large differences in their safety performance [3][4][5] . While some may consider the structural properties of systems that do safety critical work [6] , many rely on organizational safety culture to carry the explanation of differences in safety performance.…”

Resilience Markers for Safer Systems and Organisations

“…Our findings are incompatible with the view that erratic people degrade an otherwise safe system, and align with the viewpoint of Cook and Woods [23], who argue that humans need to be supported in a way that helps them cope with complexity. As Rochlin [24] identified, when managing hazardous technical operations, a high level of performance does not flow from eliminating error but rather through anticipating and planning for events and surprises.…”