Safety management theory and the military expeditionary organization: A critical theoretical reflection

Management of safety within organizations has become a key topic within safety science. Theorizing on this subject covers a diverse pallet of concepts such as “resilience” and “safety management systems”. Recent studies indicate that safety management theory has deficiencies. Our interpretation of these deficiencies is that much confusion originates from the issue that crucial meta-theoretical assumptions are mostly implicit or applied inconsistently. In particular, we argue that these meta-theoretical assumptions are of a systems theoretical nature. Therefore, we provide a framework that will be able to explicate and reflect on systems theoretical assumptions. With this framework, we analyze the ability of two frequently used safety management theories to tackle the problem of managing safety of Dutch military expeditionary organizations. This paper will show that inconsistent and implicit application of systems theoretical assumptions in these safety management theories results in problems to tackle such a practical problem adequately. We conclude with a reflection on the pros and cons of our framework. Also, we suggest particular meta-theoretical aspects that seem to be essential for applying safety management theory to organizations

Pioneering with UAVs at the battlefield: The influence of organizational design on self-organization and the emergence of safety

International audienceThis paper aims to investigate how the ad-hoc and temporary way in which Dutch expeditionary military organizations are designed influenced self-organization and the emergence of safety of UAV operations in Uruzgan. This is done by means of a qualitative case study for which in-depth interviews with operators of the UAV unit within the Task Force Uruzgan were conducted. The analysis shows that developing safe operations depended largely on “self-designing” operators. It is also shown that aspects of Task Force design hindered self-organization and emergence of safety substantially. As a result Task Force design had significant safety consequences for both UAV operations and the operations of Task Force Uruzgan. These findings are used to reflect on contemporary safety management concepts and practices such as “resilience”, “percolation” and safety management systems

Resilience leadership judgment:Findings from a cosmology episode study of the shootdown of Flight MH17

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Resilience leadership judgment: Findings from a cosmology episode study of the shootdown of Flight MH17

Researchers in the tightly enmeshed disciplines of leadership, strategy, organizations, and management have long found it helpful to test their theories through variable-based, process-based, and episode-based studies of organizational resilience in extreme enacted environments, such as wildland firefighting, high-altitude mountaineering, and special warfare operations. One of the foundational tools in the study of organizational resilience is cosmology episode studies, the rigorous analysis of the complex processes that take place before, during, and after a perturbation, disruption, crisis, disaster, or catastrophe. This cosmology episode study of the 17 July 2014 shootdown by pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) helps expand resilience leadership judgment from a simple three-phase model (before, during, after) to a more accurate five-phase model (anticipating, sense-losing, improvising, sense-remaking, renewing). More specifically, anticipating takes place before a potential catastrophe, sense-losing occurs in response to the appearance of a catastrophe, improvising generates potential solutions in the critical liminal period of a catastrophe, sense-remaking enacts a path out of the catastrophe, and renewing takes place after a catastrophe