Operational decision-making in high-hazard organizations: drawing a line in the sand

摘要

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Piper Alpha fire that cast a shadow over the oil and gas industry; in the manner of its development, let alone the cost to lives and property, as horrendous an incident as one could imagine occurring in such a setting. Of the messages emerging from the investigation that followed, one that has particularly struck me is the tension between productivity and safety that the operators found themselves negotiating in their everyday activities. It was this that came to mind as I started to work my way through Jan Hayes' insightful study of operational decision-making, which draws on ethnographic data from case studies in nuclear power generation, chemical processing and air traffic control.