Post Normal Accident

Post Normal Accident revisits Perrow’s classic Normal Accident published in 1984 and provides additional insights to our sociological view of safety-critical organisations. The operating landscape of high-risk systems has indeed profoundly changed in the past 20 to 30 years but the core sociological models of safety remain associated with classics of the 1980s and 1990s. This book examines the conceptual and empirical evolutions of the past two to three decades to explore their implications for safety management based on several strands of works in various research traditions in safety (e.g. cognitive engineering and system safety, high-reliability organisation, sociology of safety, regulatory studies) and other interdisciplinary fields (e.g. international business, globalisation studies, strategy management, ecology). It offers a new and insightful interpretation to the challenges of today. It investigates how globalisation has reconfigured the operating landscape of high-risk systems and emphasises the importance of thinking safety through a strategic angle. This book serves as an ideal resource for the safety professionals and safety researchers from any established disciplines such as sociology, engineering, psychology, political science or management. Features: Introduces an original analysis of popular safety writings, including Normal Accident, by Perrow Identifies the importance of thinking safety from a sociological angle with the help of key writers Stresses the need for greater sensitivity to strategy and "errors from the top" when it comes to the safety of high-risk systems Explains how globalisation has reconfigured the operating landscape of high-risk systems Renews our understanding of the current safety management challenges in an increasingly global risk picture

<p>We live in a period of accelerating change. New trends, technologies and crisis emerge rapidly and transform familiar social and political landscapes. Established and cherished ideals, with deep historical roots, can be overturned overnight. Unconventional and uncommon notions and events can appear as though from nowhere, proliferate, and become dominant. The last few years alone have witnessed the emergence of populism and the far right in Europe and the US, Brexit, cracks in the European Union, cyber wars accompanied by the re-emergence of a cold war. China as an increasingly dominant new superpower. Pandemics like the Ebola and Zika viruses. Climate change leading to extreme weather events. Driverless cars. AI. ‘Fake News’. ‘Alternative Facts’. ‘Post-Truth’. ‘Disruptive technologies’ that disrupt and often corrupt everything. Everything seems to be in a state of flux, nothing can be trusted. All that we regard as normal is melting away right before us.</p><p><br></p><p>The postnormal times theory attempts to make sense of a rapidly changing world, where uncertainty is the dominant theme and ignorance has become a valuable commodity. <em>The Postnormal Times Reader</em> is a pioneering anthology of writings on the contradictory, complex and chaotic nature of our era. It covers the origins, theory and methods of postnormal times; and examines a host of issues, ranging from climate change, governance, Middle East to religion and science, from the perspective of postnormal times. By mapping some of the key local and global issues of our transitional age, the Reader suggests a way of navigating our turbulent futures.</p>

An examination of different theoretical, methodological and practical approaches towards the management of risk. Seven dimensions of the debate are identified, and the case for each position is put forward, the whole discussion being set in context and perspective. This volume attempts to identify and juxtapose the contested doctrines and underlying assumptions in the field of risk management.

Normal Accidents analyzes the social side of technological risk. Charles Perrow argues that the conventional engineering approach to ensuring safety--building in more warnings and safeguards--fails because systems complexity makes failures inevitable. He asserts that typical precautions, by adding to complexity, may help create new categories of accidents. (At Chernobyl, tests of a new safety system helped produce the meltdown and subsequent fire.) By recognizing two dimensions of risk--complex versus linear interactions, and tight versus loose coupling--this book provides a powerful framework for analyzing risks and the organizations that insist we run them. The first edition fulfilled one reviewer's prediction that it "may mark the beginning of accident research." In the new afterword to this edition Perrow reviews the extensive work on the major accidents of the last fifteen years, including Bhopal, Chernobyl, and the Challenger disaster. The new postscript probes what the author considers to be the "quintessential 'Normal Accident'" of our time: the Y2K computer problem.

Over the course of the past century, there has been a sustained reflective engagement about environmental risks, disasters, and human vulnerability in our modern industrial world. This inquiry has raised a host of crucial questions. Just how safe is humanity in a world of toxic chemicals and industrial installations that have destructive potential? Is it feasible to prevent large-scale catastrophes like the ones in Bhopal, Chernobyl, and Fukushima and smaller-scale disasters such as oil spills and gas leaks? How do environmental hazards affect social and political orders? S. Ravi Rajan expertly synthesizes decades of public policy and academic discourse on how societies measure and ultimately come to terms with risk, danger, and vulnerability and offers a fresh, humanistic perspective for grappling with the new global scale and interconnectedness of these threats.

This book explores the challenges, opportunities, applications, and implications of applying qualitative research to critical questions of research and practice in the field of organizational risk and safety. The book brings together a diverse perspective to explore the practice of conducting qualitative research as well as to debate the quality of research and knowledge, drawing on a range of different perspectives and traditions. It offers novel and innovative developments in data collection and data analysis methods and tools that can be applied to safety, risk, and accident analysis in complex systems. It also will present practical issues associated with data access and empirical research in challenging and high-stakes environments. This book will provide academics, researchers, students, and professionals in the fields of safety, accident analysis, and risk with a broad-range and expert guide to the key issues and debates in the field, as well as a set of exemplary cases and reflective narratives from leading researchers in the field.