Compliance and Initiative in the Production of Safety: A Systems Perspective on Managing Tensions and Building Complementarity (SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences and Technology)

This open access book addresses the idea that there are two ways to go about achieving a safe working environment. The text challenges the prevailing notion that compliance with a rule system, imposed from the top of an organization and designed to anticipate possible hazards in system operation, is really incompatible with the idea that the professional expertise of front-line workers is what promotes safe outcomes despite inevitable unanticipated perturbations. The contributors, drawn from academic and industrial backgrounds, demonstrate that rather than being at odds with each other, rules-compliance and proactivity are in fact complementary resources the coexistence of which increases safety. Furthermore, the implications of this approach extend beyond safety, being relevant to business performance, strategies for innovation and system resilience as well. The book steps back from an exclusive focus on front-line work to explore the way in which compliance and initiative are articulated at different levels within the hierarchy of a firm, right up to that of top management. Further, the contributors analyze the way in which safety authorities, the justice system, and the general public perceive and interpret such strategies, in particular in the aftermath of major events. This book deals with issues of interest to researchers and graduate students in safety science and organization studies and to members of expert bodies and experts in industry and consultancy concerned with similar subjects. Series Editor’s Foreword Contents 1 Contextualizing (Safety) Rules 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Rules in Context (1): The Advent of (Safety) Rules as an Established Narrative 1.3 Rules in Context (2): There Is More Than Rules in Safety 1.4 Rules in Context (3): Historical Trends ... a Bureaucratization of Safety? 1.5 A Complex Empirical Question, a Sensitive One 1.6 Finding or Losing the Balance 1.7 The Situations, Roles, and Influence of Middle-Managers and Top Management 1.8 When Autonomy, Initiative, and Resilience Take the Lead References 2 Uncertainty Regulation in High-Risk Organizations: Harnessing the Benefits of Flexible Rules 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Definitions of Uncertainty 2.3 Uncertainty Regulation in Organizations 2.4 Flexible Rules 2.4.1 Basic Problems with Rules: Uncertainty and Autonomy 2.4.2 Rules as Part of Uncertainty Regulation 2.4.3 Rules as Constraints and Enablers for Behavior 2.5 Steps Toward Adopting a New Approach to Uncertainty References 3 Producing Compliance: The Work of Interpreting, Adapting, and Narrating 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Studying the Work of Compliance Officers 3.3 Producing Compliance Pragmatically 3.3.1 Interpreting Regulation 3.3.2 Adapting Regulation 3.3.3 Narrating Regulation 3.4 The Challenges of and to Pragmatic Compliance 3.5 Conclusion References 4 Untangling Safety Management: From Reasonable Regulation to Bullshit Tasks 4.1 Background and Examples 4.2 The Sociotechnical System Entangling Safety Management 4.2.1 Government, Regulations, and Associations 4.2.2 Management and Company 4.2.3 Work and Staff 4.3 Managing Through Human-Peripheral Systems 4.4 Stepping Out of Inertia References 5 Ambiguity, Uncoupling, and Autonomy: The Criminology of Organizational Middle-Management 5.1 Introduction 5.2 The Importance of Middle-Management 5.3 Foundations of the Corporate Criminological Tradition 5.3.1 Individual Motivations 5.3.2 Organizational Motivations 5.4 Connective Factors: Key Insights from Criminology 5.4.1 Ambiguities of Meaning 5.4.2 Structural Uncoupling 5.4.3 Autonomy Deficits 5.5 Conclusion References 6 The Effects of Top Managers’ Organizational Reliability Orientation 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Method 6.2.1 TMT Organizational Reliability Orientation 6.2.2 Modular Orientation 6.2.3 Systemic Orientation 6.2.4 The Case for a Systemic Orientation 6.2.5 Toward a Systemic Orientation 6.3 Conclusion References 7 Interlocking Surprises: Their Nature, Implications, and Potential Responses 7.1 The Nature of Interlocking Surprises 7.2 Key Implications 7.3 Potential Remedies 7.3.1 Building Requisite Variety 7.3.2 “Smart” Solutions 7.4 Concluding Comments References 8 Resolving the Command–Adapt Paradox: Guided Adaptability to Cope with Complexity 8.1 Introduction: Failure Is Due to Brittle Systems 8.2 The Command–Adapt Paradox 8.3 Classic Findings on the Limits of Plans, Procedures, Automata 8.3.1 Can Plans Completely Specify Actions? 8.3.2 Rationalizations 8.4 Reconceptualization 8.4.1 Plan and Revise: Guided Adaptability References