Is safety so special?
Context and objective
In the history of humanity, safety as a concern the health of people has always been integrated, to a larger or lesser degree, into human activities, from sailing or producing food to building temples. Closer to our times, during what we refer to as the industrial revolution, some activities started to exhibit highly hazardous processes with potential negative impact beyond the immediately involved people, for instance the production of gunpowder or mining both involve high explosion risks. Later described as high-risk systems, nuclear power generation, railway, aviation or chemical industry have developed specific ways of managing the safety of their installations, products and/or services, prompted also by increasing levels of regulation.
A well-known example is that of Dupont de Nemours, a company producing explosives in the 19th century in the US, becoming a giant multinational in the 20th century with chemical and nuclear activities. This company developed a model promoted as a benchmark that others could follow. In the 1990s, this approach was marketed by the company’s owns consulting branch. The “Bradley Curve” is the well-known image of this story (even though there is hardly anything published on this famous curve, see Hollnagel, 2025). Such models (Hudson, 2007) have been adopted by industries with lesser process risks to manage occupational safety to keep workers healthy (Swuste et al, 2022). High-risk organizations have become an object of intensive research in the 1980s due to many tensions and contractions they embody, such as that between central and local control of work processes (Braithwaite, 1985; Perrow, 1984; Rochlin et al, 1987; Vaughan, 1996; Weick, 1987). The interest in these organizational challenges has remained alive to the present day (e.g., Hardy et al., 2020; Le Coze, 2020; Sugawara, 2024).
In parallel, management scholars and practitioners have developed other types of production, organization and management models, such as Toyotism or lean management, with the objective to improve companies’ overall performance (Wren & Bedeian, 2023). Over the years, there have been repeated discussions about how management models aimed at process and occupational safety compare with and might also be integrated into models targeting quality, efficiency, and effectiveness of performance (Wokutch & VanSandt, 2000). Quality and lean management models in particular, were and still are adopted by some high-risk industries, and must coexist with specific regulatory requirements, such as the development of safety management systems (SMS), (Bieder, 2022; Bieder & Pettersen Gould, 2020; Stolzer, Sumwalt & Goglia 2023). With the work on high-reliability organizations (Weick & Sutcliffe, 2001) also the opposite happened, where approaches aimed at risk mitigation are considered effective for managing firms more generally. This thinking is supported by literature showing that organizational challenges around issues of control also arise from the perspective of generic management models such as quality management (Sitkin et al., 1994).
The objective of the workshop is to explore how these management models coming from different perspectives — organization & management on one side and safety on the other side — but coexisting in high-risk organizations are articulated, cross-fertilizing each other, or partly conflicting with one another, from both a theoretical and a practical point of view.
A dialogue between different perspectives
The workshop will aim at bringing together and engaging a dialogue between management & organization specialists and safety management specialists on the articulation, synergies, conflicts, interrelations between generic management models and safety models, and how they translate and are translated in practice at all organizational levels. Historical perspectives on the evolution of management models and practices at high-risk industries can also shed light on the discussion by providing another perspective. Field studies as well as more theoretical contributions are welcome to enrich the reflection and conversation.
Some driving questions
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How has safety influenced the development of historical production model of very high-risk organizations (e.g. explosives (Dupont), space, aviation, nuclear, chemistry; oil & gas)? How did these organizations and their management models evolve with time and the improvement of safety?
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How is safety integrated (if at all) in/articulated with well-known legacy and more recent management models (e.g. Taylorism, Toyotism, Lean, Socio-technical system, High Performance Working System, Smart Factory, Factory 5.0)? Which groups within and outside organizations are in charge of doing it/think it out?
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How would organizing work practices to accomplish the work well in an organization that has safety stakes among others contrast with organizing work practices starting from a safety perspective?
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To what extent could safety be managed with a management model from non-high-risk industries? What would be the pros? What would be missing? Under what conditions?
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How are coexisting models “digested” at the operational level? How are they translated into practice? Is this theorized?
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How are the overall company’s objectives integrated (if at all) in/articulated with safety management models? Who is in charge of doing it/thinking it out?
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To what extent could a company be managed on the sole base of a safety management model? What would be the pros? What would be missing? Under what conditions?
References
Bieder, C., & Pettersen Gould, K. (2020). The coupling of safety and security: exploring interrelations in theory and practice (p. 113). Springer Nature.
Bieder, C. (2022). Safety Management Systems and Their Origins: Insights from the Aviation Industry. CRC Press.
Braithwaite, J. (1985). To punish or persuade: Enforcement of coal mine safety. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Hardy, C., Maguire, S., Power, M., & Tsoukas, H. (2020). Organizing risk: Organization and management theory for the risk society. Academy of Management Annals, 14: 1032—1066.
Hollnagel, E. (2025). A note on changing from a decremental safety culture to an incremental safety culture.
Hudson, P. (2007). Implementing a safety culture in a major multi-national. Safety Science 45, 697—722.
Le Coze, J.-C. (2020). Post Normal Accident. Revisiting Perrow’s classic. CRC Press.
Perrow, C. (1984). Normal Accidents. Living with high risk technologies. Basic Books.
Rochlin, G. I., La Porte, T. R., & Roberts, K. H.(1987). The Self-Designing High-Reliability Organization: Aircraft Carrier Flight Operations at Sea. Naval War College Review, 40(4), 76—90.
Sitkin, S. B., Sutcliffe, K. M., & Schroeder, R. G.(1994). Distinguishing Control from Learning in Total Quality Management: A Contingency Perspective. Academy of Management Review, 19, 537—564.
Stolzer, A. J., Sumwalt, R. L., & Goglia, J. J.(2023). Safety management systems in aviation. CRC Press.
Sugawara, S. (2024). Addressing “beyond control”: nuclear safety goals in the age of risk governance. Journal of Risk Research.
Swuste, P., Groeneweg, J., Guldenmund, F. W., Gulijk, C. van, Lemkowitz, S., Oostendorp, Y., & Zwaard, W. (2022). From Safety to Safety Science - The Evolution of Thinking and Practice. Routledge.
Vaughan, D. (1996). The Challenger launch decision: Risky technology, culture, and deviance at NASA. University of Chicago Press.
Weick, K. (1987). Organizational Culture as a Source of High Reliability. California Management Review, 29(2), 112—127.
Weick, K. E., & Sutcliffe, K. M.(2001). Managing the Unexpected. Jossey-Bass.
Wokutch, R. E., & VanSandt, C. V.(2000). OHS management in the United States and Japan: the DuPont and Toyota models.
Wren, D. A., & Bedeian, A. G.(2023). The evolution of management thought. John Wiley & Sons.