Managing the Risk of Organizational Incidents

Abstract

In Reason’s, Managing the Risk of Organizational Incidents, `Reason draws on the work of other authors, and how awareness of the operating consequences of action is more important that causes of error. It is the intention of this paper to review some of this work, in particular in the light of current trends that promote Risk Management, Incident Recording and Lead/Lagging Indicators as the “new direction in safety management”. It will then go on to suggest why we need to encompass more of general management principles in the way that we think about safety in the work place and perhaps create new tools that move away from the Engineering model and its linear solutions, to an Organizational Model, where responsibility lies with the Individual rather than the System. It will draw on case studies to demonstrate a sample of how the approach may have validity.