Assessment of an emerging concept in system safety : "the just culture"

• Main Author: Soro, Adama
• Other Authors: Nancy Leveson.
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2010
• Subjects: Engineering Systems Division.; System Design and Management Program.
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/59273

Thesis (S.M. in System Design and Management)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2010. === "June 2010." Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. === Includes bibliographical references (p. 49). === Accidents and incidents are among the major drawbacks in the development of systems engineering. Investigations attribute most of these accidents to their operators' unsafe acts generally termed as "human errors". One way most organizations chose to address this issue is to define accountability and assign blame in the wake of accidents. Clearly, disciplinary policies in force in organizations are supposed to support their system safety efforts. Yet, despite the prevalence of the culture of blame, the percentage of accidents attributed to human errors is not decreasing significantly. Recently, some researchers in system safety rightly identified the overemphasis on blame as a major impediment to conducting proper accident investigations and setting an effective reporting safety system. So, they developed an alternative concept that they termed "Just Culture" that is supposed to improve safety in organizations by addressing the limitations of the current punitive culture. === by Adama Soro. === S.M.in System Design and Management