Abstract
This paper contributes to safety management by bringing
in ideas from organizational complexity theories. Much of
the studies and the literature on organizations as
complex adaptive systems have focused on how to produce
new innovations or how to increase financial
effectiveness. We take the view that safety-critical
organizations can be perceived as complex adaptive
systems, and we discuss what this means for the
management of safety. Our aim is to elaborate on the
issue of what kinds of principles the management of
safety should be based on in complex adaptive systems. In
brief, we suggest that safety management should be
adaptive, building on several different principles. Based
on literature on complex adaptive systems we first
identify the general features of complex adaptive
systems, such as self-organizing and non-linearity, which
need to be considered in management. Based on the
features of complex adaptive systems, we define eight key
principles of adaptive safety management and illustrate
usefulness of the principles in making sense of the
practice of safety management.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 80-92 |
Journal | Safety Science |
Volume | 71 |
Issue number | Part B |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2014 |
MoE publication type | A1 Journal article-refereed |
Keywords
- safety management
- complexity theories
- complex adaptive systems
- systems thinking