Blame logics in organisations following accidents: bad apples, protecting power structures, and organisational learning

This upcoming study summary explores two different approaches to explain organisational accidents:

1. Individual blame logics (IBL)

2. Organisational function logics (OFL)

The individual blame logic (IBL) is said to often beat out the organisational function logic (OFL).

IBL is an accusatory approach, aiming to identify guilty individuals. It’s typical of criminal law, but “is also prominent in organizations based on a punitive culture”.

The approach also fits snuggly with the societal need to identify clear causes for accidents.

OFL in contrast is an organisational approach intending to identify system factors which contributed to the event.

IBL, operates on what seem to be, on the surface, valid assumptions:

1. People’s actions are voluntary

2. Responsibility lies with people

3. Sense of justice is strengthened – the bad apple has been punished

4. Convenience – it allows organisations and existing structures, rules and power systems to continue without change

With OFL, there’s an increasing recognition that mishaps are “inextricably linked to the functioning of surrounding organizations and institutions”. OFL operates under the logics that performance variability is inherent to the human condition and we can change the conditions under which people work more readily than the human condition.

While OFL recognises the proximal connection between events and human action, it also acknowledges “these mistakes …are socially organized and systematically produced (Vaughan, 1996)”.

OFL recognises active and proximal factors by people, but also upstream latent factors which incubated the event via “temporal pressures, equivocal technology with ambiguous man–machine interfaces, insufficient training, insufficient support structures” and more.

The article then unpacks the different logics from the perspective of learning.

Summary in the next couple of weeks.

Authors: Catino, M. (2008). A review of literature: individual blame vs. organizational function logics in accident analysis. Journal of contingencies and crisis management, 16(1), 53-62.

Study link: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Maurizio-Catino/publication/227822215_A_Review_of_Literature_Individual_Blame_vs_Organizational_Function_Logics_in_Accident_Analysis/links/5c4933d292851c22a38c243a/A-Review-of-Literature-Individual-Blame-vs-Organizational-Function-Logics-in-Accident-Analysis.pdf?origin=journalDetail&_tp=eyJwYWdlIjoiam91cm5hbERldGFpbCJ9

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