Organisational learning – Reflections from the nuclear industry

Preventing black swans: incident reporting systems as collective knowledge management

“…Research has also addressed the factors that support or hinder reporting. A consistent finding is that reports depend on the ease of the reporting process, whether staff fear disciplinary action, and whether reporting is perceived to be worthwhile (Dekker 2012;Phimister et al 2003;Wahlström 2011). Similarly, it is commonly argued that the efficacy of reporting systems depends on analysis of reports and actions to prevent recurrence (Hopkins 2009;Hovden, Størseth, and Tinmannsvik 2011;Phimister et al 2003;Reason 1997).…”

Learning to prevent disaster: An investigation into methods for building safety knowledge among new engineers to the Australian gas pipeline industry

“…However, at a more foundational level, a question less-addressed is how this valuable expertise and associated appreciations of safety are developed among personnel (exceptions include Nesheim and Gressgård, 2014;Størseth and Tinmannsvik, 2012;Wahlström, 2011). To progress our understanding of this question, this research looked to the work on naturalistic decision making and organisational learning to appreciate the processes and challenges of expertise development in organisations.…”

“…It has been argued that they fail because, as this research found, interaction with groups of people and direct experience are vital to knowledge exchange. Formal organisational learning mechanisms specifically in a hazardous industry context have also been shown as deficient (Hayes, 2013;Wahlström, 2011). However, as safety scholars have emphasised, lessons are so rare -not only within a company, but at an industry and even at a cross-industry level -that the potential for more consistently capturing lessons and embedding them in organisations warrants systematic enquiry.…”

Cultural features of design and shared learning for safety: A Nordic nuclear industry perspective

“…Although organizational learning takes a central role in safety-critical domains, the main focus is rather retrospective, that is, learning from past incidents, accidents and near misses (Doytchev and Hibberd, 2009;Wahlström, 2011). Recently, Drupsteen and Guldenmund (2014) carried out a literature review on organizational learning and safety, and emphasized that although learning is recognized as a key process for improving safety in organizations, lessons learned are insufficiently shared and conditions for learning have received limited research attention.…”