Laura Fruhen

Chronic unease for safety in managers: a conceptualisation

To achieve a high level of safety, managers of organisations in hazardous industries need to maintain a state of constant wariness towards the management of risks, often conceptualised as ‘chronic unease’. Despite the prevalence of this term in the literature, there is limited evidence to enable a definition or operationalisation of this concept. To develop a better understanding of chronic unease, a literature search of articles using this term was conducted. Descriptions of chronic unease from nine articles were coded resulting in the identification of five themes: pessimism, propensity to worry, vigilance, requisite imagination and flexible thinking, as the components of chronic unease. We propose a preliminary conceptualisation of chronic unease based on these attributes, which suggests that this specific type of strain may be a desirable state for managers in relation to the control of risks.

‘Chronic unease’ for safety in senior managers: an interview study of its components, behaviours and consequences

The high reliability literature describes a sense of chronic unease as supporting managers’ ability to deal with (safety) risks. This concept has been proposed to contain five components, namely the traits of propensity to worry, pessimism, and the cognitive abilities of requisite imagination, flexible thinking and vigilance. We study their applicability to senior managers’ experience of chronic unease and explore related behaviours and consequences. Semi-structured interviews (n = 27) were conducted with senior managers from the energy sector. Content analysis identified flexible thinking most frequently, followed by pessimism, propensity to worry, vigilance and requisite imagination. Experience additionally emerged as a theme. Sections that had been coded as flexible thinking were frequently also coded as a behaviour, suggesting it to be a partially observable response to chronic unease. Other behaviours that emerged as related to chronic unease were demonstrating safety commitment, transformational and transactional leadership styles, and seeking information. Chronic unease was described as having positive effects on safety, positive and negative effects on team interaction and negative effects on business and the managers’ personal outcomes. The findings indicate that the five components provide a basis for the measurement of chronic unease and suggest central behaviours and responses that should be considered in its future investigation.

Managing Safety: Ambiguous Information and Chronic Unease

Managers rarely have full and unequivocal data on their external environment or on the state of their internal processes and in this paper we discuss how they deal with ambiguity, in relation to organizational safety. Drawing on our research into managers’ safety intelligence and on the value of chronic unease for safety management, we show how both requisite anxiety and problem solving skills can help managers make the best use of ambiguous safety information.