RISK MANAGEMENT IN A DYNAMIC SOCIETY - A MODELING PROBLEM

In spite of all efforts to design safer systems, we still witness seve re, large-scale accidents. A basic question is: Do we actually have ad equate models of accident causation in the present dynamic society? Th e socio-technical system involved in risk management includes several levels ranging from legislators, over managers and work planners, to s ystem operators. This system is presently stressed by a fast pace of t echnological change, by an increasingly aggressive, competitive enviro nment, and by changing regulatory practices and public pressure. Tradi tionally, each level of this is studied separately by a particular aca demic discipline, and modelling is done by generalising across systems and their particular hazard sources. It is argued that risk managemen t must be modelled by cross-disciplinary studies, considering risk man agement to be a control problem and serving to represent the control s tructure involving all levels of society for each particular hazard ca tegory. Furthermore, it is argued that this requires a system-oriented approach based on functional abstraction rather than structural decom position. Therefore, task analysis focused on action sequences and occ asional deviation in terms of human errors should be replaced by a mod el of behaviour shaping mechanisms in terms of work system constraints , boundaries of acceptable performance, and subjective criteria guidin g adaptation to change. It is found that at present a convergence of r esearch paradigms of human sciences guided by cognitive science concep ts supports this approach. A review of this convergence within decisio n theory and management research is presented in comparison with the e volution of paradigms within safety research. (C) 1997 Elsevier Scienc e Ltd. All rights reserved.