Managing the Risks of Organizational Accidents » (1st Edition)

Major accidents are rare events due to the many barriers, safeguards, and defenses developed by modern technologies. But they continue to happen with saddening regularity, and their human and financial consequences are all too often catastrophic. One of the challenges facing the next millennium is to develop more effective ways of both understanding and limiting their occurrence.

This lucid book presents a set of common principles to further our knowledge of the causes of major accidents in a wide variety of high technology systems. It also describes tools and techniques for managing the risks of such organizational accidents that go beyond those currently available to system managers and safety professionals.

The author deals comprehensively with the prevention of major accidents arising from human and organizational causes. He argues that the same general principles and management techniques are appropriate for many different domains. These include banks and insurance companies just as much as nuclear power plants, oil exploration and production companies, chemical process installations, and air, sea, and rail transport.

Its unique combination of principles and practicalities make Managing the Risks of Organizational Accidents essential reading for those people whose daily business is to manage, audit, and regulate hazardous technologies of all kinds. It is relevant to those concerned with understanding and controlling human and organizational factors, and will also interest academic readers and those working in industrial and government agencies.

About the Author: James Reason, Professor of Psychology, University of Manchester, UK. He is also co-author of Beyond Aviation Human Factors and the author of Human Error (1990).

Booknews

Presents a set of principles related to the causes of major accidents in high technology systems and describes tools and techniques for managing risks of such organizational accidents that go beyond those currently available to system managers and safety professionals. Deals with prevention of major accidents arising from human and organizational causes in many different domains, from banks and insurance companies to nuclear power plants and transport. For those working in management or regulation of hazardous technologies. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.