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A contemporary view of organizational safety: variability and interactions of organizational processes

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Abstract

Studies of qualitative assessment of organizational processes (e.g., safety audits and performance indicators) and their incorporation into risk models have been based on a ‘normative view’ that decomposes organizations into separate processes that are likely to fail and lead to accidents. This paper discusses a control theoretic framework of organizational safety that views accidents as a result of performance variability of human behaviors and organizational processes whose complex interactions and coincidences lead to adverse events. Safety-related tasks managed by organizational processes are examined from the perspective of complexity and coupling. This allows safety analysts to look deeper into the complex interactions of organizational processes and how these may remain hidden or migrate toward unsafe boundaries. A taxonomy of variability of organizational processes is proposed and challenges in managing adaptability are discussed. The proposed framework can be used for studying interactions between organizational processes, changes of priorities over time, delays in effects, reinforcing influences, and long-term changes of processes. These dynamic organizational interactions are visualized with the use of system dynamics. The framework can provide a new basis for modeling organizational factors in risk analysis, analyzing accidents and designing safety reporting systems.

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  1. Department of Production Engineering and Management, Technical University of Technology, University campus, Chania, 73100, Crete, Greece

    Tom Kontogiannis

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  1. Tom Kontogiannis
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Correspondence to Tom Kontogiannis.

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Kontogiannis, T. A contemporary view of organizational safety: variability and interactions of organizational processes. Cogn Tech Work 12, 231–249 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10111-009-0131-x

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