This open access paper from Kevin Geddart, Drew Rae and Sid Dekker is a very interesting read. It applied a new method for studying under-reporting of injuries in company data and for also revealing systematic biases. I feel like I haven’t done a good job explaining this, so I recommend just reading the paper. Company… Continue reading How Does Selective Reporting Distort Understanding of Workplace Injuries?

This is a very brief summary of research on educational design principles to develop training and non-technical skills, with the aim of increasing capacity for organisational resilience. Even if you’re critical of the contemporary resilience perspective, the concept of scenario-based training and simulations isn’t new and thus, this paper may still be of interest. Proposed… Continue reading Improving resilience in high-risk organizations: principles for the design of innovative training situations

How rational is an incident investigation process? It’s easy to believe it’s rational: you have an incident, investigate the contributing factors and then implement corrective actions to address those factors. There’s a concept called “what you look for is what you find”, highlighting that if you go looking for something (e.g. error or violations, cultural… Continue reading Mini-post: The rationality or not of incident investigations (what you find is not always what you fix)

This explored the use (or not) of established risk management practices and processes in 21 Information System (IS) projects in 10 organisations. Key questions were: To what extent do project managers adhere or disengage from prescribed risk management processes? Why do managers stop practicing risk management in projects that have significant risks that could affect… Continue reading Does risk matter? Disengagement from risk management practices in information systems projects

“Positive Self-Statements: Power for Some, Peril for Others” How useful are repeating positive self-statements (e.g. I’m a lovable person, I have the power to change my mind/life situation, I can do this if I don’t give up etc) in boosting mood and self-esteem? David McRaney on the You Are Not So Smart podcast spoke about… Continue reading Mini-post: Positive self-statements

This explored the association between CEO power and workplace injuries and illnesses. Power was modelled via 1) structural power (whether the CEO has a dual role as chairperson and president) and their pay proportional to the five highest paid executives, 2) expertise, 3) ownership, 4) prestige. They also looked at geographical proximity of the CEO… Continue reading Ruthless Exploiters or Ethical Guardians of the Workforce? Powerful CEOs and their Impact on Workplace Safety and Health

ABSTRACT Workers in the steel-manufacturing industry face many safety risks due to the nature of the job. How well safety procedures and regulations are followed within an organization is considered to be influenced by the reigning culture of the organization. The aim of this study was to investigate and describe safety culture and risk-taking at… Continue reading Safety culture and reasons for risk-taking at a large steel-manufacturing company: Investigating the worker perspective

In 1987, a fire ripped through The King’s Cross St Pancras tube station and killing 31 people. The fire started under a wooden escalator, probably ignited by a discarded burning match and fuelled initially by a build-up of grease and fibrous materials. One thing I found interesting is the observation from the investigation (see image… Continue reading Mini-post: “Smoulder!” … evacuate now

This explored the role of humility in adopting error management principles among auditors. This is a pretty dense paper with 3 study protocols, so I’ve had to skip significant portions of the paper. Two key error management principles were covered: EMO (error management orientation) and EPO (error prevention orientation). EMO is a positive attitude towards… Continue reading Who Adopts An Error Management Orientation – Discovering The Role Of Humility

This meta-analysis evaluated research on the impacts of destructive leadership on organisational, individual, job-related outcomes; highlighting the strength of the correlations. 57 studies (out of 200+ identified) met inclusion requirements. Way too much to cover, so just a few points. First, they give a background on destructive leadership. Prevalence of destructive leader behaviours have been… Continue reading How bad are the effects of bad leaders – A meta-analysis of destructive leadership and its outcomes