Claude Gilbert

Errors and Failures: Towards a New Safety Paradigm

In France studies on technological risks began to question errors, failures and vulnerabilities at the end of the 1970s, focusing mostly on analyzing major accidents as consequences of the increasing complexity of socio‐technical systems. During the 1980s and 1990s, research studies carried out in different fields (industrial risks, natural risks, health risks) underlined the importance of organizational factors in system vulnerabilities. Still, the bases of safety policies and safety management remained unchanged, with a strong reliance on rules and procedures. Building on an interdisciplinary reflection carried out at the beginning of the 2000s, this paper calls into question the prevailing approach as regards safety. Identifying the basic assumptions behind safety policies, it is argued that, in light of research advances in various fields of safety studies – and more specifically in cognitive ergonomics – they appear to be basically flawed. In a quite radical manner, a recognition of errors and failures as a part of the usual functioning of socio‐technical systems, which are “naturally” unstable systems, is called for. As for risk control, it appears to result mainly from the capacity of operators, working groups and organisations for dynamically “making up” for errors and failures. These analyses open very stimulating prospects of research. However, the question of their social and political acceptability must be seriously considered.

Crisis Analysis: Between Normalization and Avoidance

French social science research on crisis has experienced strong evolutions over the past twenty years. Attention shifted from problems that the authorities had in managing industrial accidents and natural disasters, transportation accidents, to crisis associated with the idea of an ‘affair’ or ‘scandal’ (contaminated blood affair, asbestos issue) and to collective risks characterized by a high level of uncertainty and generating multiple scientific controversies and public debates (“mad cow disease”, GMO, etc,). Another change regards the issues at stake. Whereas management problems (regarding decision, communication, etc.) were the core issues, analyses are now more and more focused on multiple scientific controversies and public debates, on public authorities and scientific experts being held accountable for serious dysfunctions in the public health field, on media coverage and legal repercussions of such problems. Because of this double change, crises tend to become a more ‘ordinary’ research topic in the academic field. Consequently new trends of analysis develop, related less to a specific, critical situation than to changes and destabilizations in systems of actors. From this point of view, crisis has a strongly endogenous character and crises analysis tends to converge with the analysis of risks as public problems and with the analysis of ‘normal’ situations.

From One Crisis to the Other: The Shift of Research Interests in France

The key to effective crisis management lies not so much with the writing of detailed manuals (that have a low likelihood of being used, and an even lower likelihood of being useful) and practising location evacuations as with structured and continuous learning processes designed to equip key managers with the capabilities, flexibility and confidence to deal with sudden and unexpected problems/events - or shifts in public perception of any such problems/events.

Exploring the Ambiguous Consensus on Public–Private Partnerships in Collective Risk Preparation

Once considered potential sources of danger, generating industrial risks, companies are now viewed as indispensable partners in preparing risk responses. However, this shift raises the crucial question of the coordination between the various actors, especially as the literature - particularly on public-private partnerships (PPPs) and inter-organisational collaborations - highlights multiple potential obstacles. This article analyses the conditions and difficulties of this type of collaboration in preparing the response to a major collective risk - the threat of an influenza pandemic - by examining the relations between French public authorities and companies before and during the alert raised by an outbreak of A(H1N1). Shaped by responsibility and legitimacy issues, these relations are problematic and ambiguous, revealing a poorly designed framework which seems to be a source of difficulties rather than conducive to the effective handling of a pandemic threat. Ultimately, the study questions the desirability of a PPP in the specific context of risk management. This study is based on 30 interviews with public and private-sector actors together with the observation of conferences and the meetings of groups that exchange good practices between companies.

Safety: A Matter for ‘Professionals’?

This opening chapter questions the links between safety and ‘professionalization’ according to the following dialectics. ‘Ordinary safety’, means safety embedded in everyday industrial practices where the more professional one is in one’s dedicated duties, the safer one works. Yet ‘extraordinary safety’, namely safety isolated from other working dimensions, is a matter of exception and safety training requires specific actions from specialized departments and professionals. The author then elaborated on safety to meet internal objectives or safety to comply with external stakeholders’ expectations, more as a justification requirement.

Risk Studies: The French Contribution

Since the late 1980s risks have been at the centre of numerous debates in France, as in many other countries. This phenomenon is related to the growth of environmental issues, accompanied by a mounting awareness of the vulnerability of our societies and of the ambivalent role of science and technology as a source of progress but also of new risks (Fabiani and Theys, 1987). More recently, a series of health crises and scandals has further heightened consciousness in this respect. In this context, the issue of risk is crucial since it raises questions on the constitution of our societies: the role of the state which protects but simultaneously restricts freedoms; the evolving relations between knowledge and power; new forms in the legitimization of action; society’s relationship with its own development, and so on. Hence, as in many countries, French researchers’ interest in risks stems from a feeling, shared by many, that risks are one of the perspectives from which society producing itself can be observed. Like Ulrich Beck, with his ‘‘risk society’’ thesis, François Ewald sees in the current period a new political regime, the ‘‘state of precaution’’, in which risk plays a role in the development of a new governmentality (Ewald, 2005). The ‘‘new risks’’ of the state of precaution (Godard et al., 2003) are complex and systemic, fraught with uncertainties, objects of controversial knowledge. Their very definition is the subject of debates, and they lend themselves to phenomena of publicization and politicization. The new governmentality is therefore marked by an increasingly frequent use of scientific expertise, which is a strategic political resource for many actors in the regulation of risks.

Beyond Safety Training

This book investigates why, despite more and more resources devoted to safety training, expectations are not entirely met, particularly in the industrial sectors that have already achieved a high safety level. It not only reflects the most precious viewpoints of experts from different disciplines, different countries, with experiences in various industrial fields at the cutting edge of theories and practices in terms of safety, professionalization and their relationships. It also consolidates the positioning of the Foundation for an Industrial Safety Culture, highlighting what is currently considered at stake in terms of safety training, taking into account the system of constraints the different stakeholders are submitted to. It reports some success stories as well as elements which could explain the observed plateau in terms of outcome. It identifies some levers for evolution for at-risk industry and outlines a possible research agenda to go further with experimental solutions.

Safety Models, Safety Cultures: What Link?

In this introductive chapter, Claude Gilbert, President of the FonCSI “strategic analysis” group on safety models and safety culture, shares with us the group’s initial findings on this topic. This text was also used as the introduction to the research seminar organised in June 2016, key step of the project that led to this book. Depending on what is meant by “model”, the way to address the link between safety models and safety culture will be different, ranging from straightforward to very complex. This chapter adopts a viewpoint focused on the actors concerned by safety, and questions how they are led to “navigate” through a world of constraints and opportunities. It highlights the importance to consider what is “already there” (company cultures), what may drive the organisations choices among the multiple offers available on the “safety culture ideas’ and methods’ markets”. It ends up giving food for debate by proposing some research avenues to help industrial organisations better meet their expectations in terms of safety culture.