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Celebrating a Citation Classic—and More
Symposium on Charles Perrow’s Normal Accidents
Eugene A. Rosa
Washington State University
The purpose of this commentary is to provide a review and preliminary assessment of Perrow’s Normal Accident Framework (NAF) as a theoretical statement and compare it with the High Reliability Organization Framework (HROF). Given the tendency of risk analysts to reduce complex systems to psychological processes and phenomena, it is suggested that continuing work with both the NAF and the HROF is important. These frameworks provide macroconstructs (power and culture, respectively) that could be integrated and that are essential for sociological analysis of complex systems. Investigations that expand the cases of analyses to include both systems with accidents and systems without is necessary for theory building that relies on the principle of falsification.
Key Words: complex systems • normal accidents • high reliability organizations • theory development • psychological reductionism • sociology of risk
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Organization & Environment, Vol. 18, No. 2,
229-234 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/1086026604270873
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S. Shrivastava, K. Sonpar, and F. Pazzaglia
Normal Accident Theory versus High Reliability Theory: A resolution and call for an open systems view of accidents
Human Relations,
September 1, 2009;
62(9):
1357 - 1390.
[Abstract]
[PDF]
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