A new Springer book on managed and rule-based safety

Compliance and Initiative in the Production of Safety presents the results of a strategic analysis on this subject. 

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What’s in it?

This book addresses the idea that there are two ways to go about achieving a safe working environment. The text challenges the prevailing notion that compliance with a rule system, imposed from the top of an organization and designed to anticipate possible hazards in system operation, is really incompatible with the idea that the professional expertise of front-line workers is what promotes safe outcomes despite inevitable unanticipated perturbations.

The contributors, drawn from academic and industrial backgrounds, demonstrate that rather than being at odds with each other, rules-compliance and proactivity are in fact complementary resources the coexistence of which increases safety. Furthermore, the implications of this approach extend beyond safety, being relevant to business performance, strategies for innovation and system resilience as well.

Articles and authors

This 8-chapter academic book is based on presentations by international experts who were invited to FonCSI’s strategic analysis seminar on the topic of the Articulation between Rule-based and Managed Safety.

• “Contextualizing (Safety) Rules”, by Jean-Christophe Le Coze (Ineris, France)
• “Uncertainty Regulation in High-Risk Organizations: Harnessing the Benefits of Flexible Rules”, by Gudela Grote (ETH Zürich, Switzerland)
• “Producing Compliance: The Work of Interpreting, Adapting, and Narrating”, by Ruthanne Huising (EMlyon Business School, France)
• “Untangling Safety Management: From Reasonable Regulation to Bullshit Tasks”, by Kristine Vedal Størkersen (Sintef, Norway) and Håkon Fyhn (Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway)
• “Ambiguity, Uncoupling, and Autonomy: The Criminology of Organizational Middle-Management”, by Paul Almond (University of Leicester, UK)
• “The Effects of Top Managers’ Organizational Reliability Orientation”, by Rangaraj Ramanujam (Vanderbilt University, USA)
• “Interlocking Surprises: Their Nature, Implications, and Potential Responses”, by Moshe Farjoun (York University, Canada)
• “Resolving the Command-Adapt Paradox: Guided Adaptability to Cope with Complexity”, by David D. Woods (The Ohio State University, USA)

This is the 13th FonCSI book published by Springer, and the latest in the SpringerBriefs in Safety Management collection.

Enjoy the book!