Abstract
The objective of the paper is to gain understanding of
regulatory regimes and sociotechnical aspects in safety
regulation in three high-risk industries - nuclear,
petroleum and chemical industry. The paper draws on
studies on regulation and safety (Hollnagel 2014).
Changes in the regulatory realities involved a gradual
shift from a state centred command and control type of
regulation towards more decentred one. Decentred
regulation entails complexity and fragmentation of
knowledge. As no single actor has adequate knowledge to
regulate and improve safety, cooperation is required.
Yet, from the regulatory point of view, a challenge is to
get different, relatively autonomous actors with their
own interests and priorities, to commit themselves to
working for safety, and to get them to act in a
coordinated way. Moreover, new safety paradigm that sees
safety as an emergent phenomenon and by-product of
several technical and social structures, processes and
activities in an organisation, and between organisations,
challenges traditional ways to govern safety. How is
sociotechnical thinking manifested in safety regulation
of high-risk industries? What are the differences and
similarities between the regulatory regimes? The data
consists of interviews with professionals from the
Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority from Finland
(STUK), Finnish Safety and Chemicals Agency (TUKES) and
Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA). In addition,
data includes documents concerning safety requirements.
Method of analysis is content analysis (Krippendorf
2004). Tentative findings show that despite some
differences between the regimes, there are lot of
similarities at the regime level. With regard to
sociotechnical aspects, concrete practices reveal more
than the regime level. Findings show that regulatory
bodies and high-risk industries have adopted
sociotechnical thinking e.g. by emphasising the need to
understand overall safety or by incorporating several
stakeholders in safety discussions. In addition, the
study shows differences in the ways self-regulation was
implemented and reflected upon by the inspectors.
Moreover, economic hard times provide challenges both to
traditional and sociotechnical ways to deal with safety.
Comparison between the regimes and practices provides
material for reflecting upon different practices, and
hence, reference points for learning.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Risk, Reliability and Safety |
Subtitle of host publication | Innovating Theory and Practice: Proceedings of ESREL 2016 (Glasgow, Scotland, 25-29 September 2016) |
Editors | Lesley Walls, Matthew Revie, Tim Bedford |
Publisher | CRC Press |
ISBN (Electronic) | 978-1-315-37498-7 |
ISBN (Print) | 978-1-138-02997-2 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2016 |
MoE publication type | A4 Article in a conference publication |
Event | 26th European Safety and Reliability Conference, ESREL 2016 - Glasgow, United Kingdom Duration: 25 Sept 2016 → 29 Sept 2016 |
Conference
Conference | 26th European Safety and Reliability Conference, ESREL 2016 |
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Abbreviated title | ESREL 2016 |
Country/Territory | United Kingdom |
City | Glasgow |
Period | 25/09/16 → 29/09/16 |
Keywords
- accident prevention
- chemical industry
- petroleum industry
- reliability
- reliability theory
- command and control
- emergent phenomenon
- method of analysis
- regulatory bodies
- regulatory regime
- safety regulations
- safety requirements
- socio-technical aspects