This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Leveson, N. Articles by Carroll, J. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Moving Beyond Normal Accidents and High Reliability Organizations: A Systems Approach to Safety in Complex Systems

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, leveson.nancy{at}gmail.com

Nicolas Dulac

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, ndulac{at}gmail.com

Karen Marais

School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Perdue University, USA, kmarais{at}purdue.edu

John Carroll

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, jcarroll{at}mit.edu

In this century society faces increasingly large-scale accidents and risks emerging from our own wondrous technologies. Two prominent organizational approaches to safety, Normal Accident Theory and High Reliability Organizations, have focused attention on a variety of industries that deal with hazardous situations, developed concepts to explicate organizational structure and culture, and debated whether accidents are inevitable in complex systems. We outline these approaches and identify some limitations, including narrow definitions, ambiguity about key concepts, confusion of reliability and safety, and overly pessimistic or optimistic conclusions. We believe that the debate between NAT and HRO can become a more productive three-way conversation by including a systems approach to safety emerging from engineering disciplines. The more comprehensive systems approach clarifies the strengths and weaknesses of NAT and HRO and offers a more powerful repertoire of analytic tools and intervention strategies to manage and control post modern risk in complex, high-tech, systems with their potential for catastrophic disruptions and losses.

Key Words: accidents • safety • risk • reliability • complexity • socio-technical systems

Organization Studies, Vol. 30, No. 2-3, 227-249 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0170840608101478


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?