Operational Decision-making in High-hazard Organizations

Drawing a Line in the Sand

Author: Jan Hayes

Operational Decision-making in High-hazard Organizations

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Summary

Description

This book takes a fresh look at safety decision-making by documenting and examining stories told by front-line managers in three different high-hazard industries: a chemical plant, a nuclear power station and an air-navigation service provider. From Piper Alpha to Deepwater Horizon, accident analysis has stressed the importance of excellent decision-making by those in charge out in the field. Organizations rely critically on the judgement and experience of such senior operations personnel and yet these qualities are undervalued in a business environment that emphasises documentation and measurement. Whilst operational managers are guided by rules, they also draw on their own long experience and can formulate a situation-specific ’line in the sand’ to apply the experience of the operating team to complex, real-world situations that rule writers may not have foreseen. This volume refocuses our attention on the people who make these important decisions and the organizational processes that support the best choices. Jan Hayes uses her multi-disciplinary experience to draw together an account of safety decision-making that is both technically robust and yet accessible to academics, practitioners and regulators alike. Readers will see that the stories retold in this book provide a way for operational managers to share their knowledge, experience and expertise - with each other and with us.

Critic Reviews

This book is an enormously valuable addition to the literature on high reliability organizations. Andrew Hopkins, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Australian National University, Canberra 'Overall this is a tightly written and well-argued book, which clearly shows that, despite little understanding or acknowledgement, organisations rely critically on the experience and judgement of professionals to keep workers and general public safe.' The RoSPA Occupational Safety & Health Journal, September 2013

About the Author

Jan Hayes has 25 years' experience in safety and risk management. She holds a Senior Research Fellow appointment at the Australian National University where she is Program Leader for the social science research activities of the Energy Pipelines Co-operative Research Centre. Dr Hayes is a member of the Advisory Board of the Australian National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority.

More on this Book

This book describes research on safety-related decision-making by operations supervisory personnel in three different high-hazard industries, and features a case study illustrating each: a chemical plant, a nuclear power station and an air-navigation service provider. A large body of research about industrial decision-making already exists, but the focus is almost invariably control-room operators, field staff and other frontline personnel. Another large body of research about managerial decision-making covers strategic issues. The focus of this research is quite different and unique: those who supervise the frontline personnel and essentially provide the organizational link between senior management and minute-by-minute system operations.