Call for paper for the Special issue: Does Structure Create Culture?
摘要截稿:
全文截稿: 2019-06-30
影响因子: 4.105
期刊难度:
CCF分类: 无
中科院JCR分区:
• 大类 : 工程技术 - 2区
• 小类 : 工程:工业 - 2区
• 小类 : 运筹学与管理科学 - 2区
Overview
Organisational culture is often treated as an explanation for major accidents. A good example of this is the Columbia space shuttle accident, which the inquiry Board attributed to a broken safety culture. This is hardly a satisfying explanation, however, because we immediately want to know why the culture was broken. The answer which the Board implicitly provides is that the organizational structure of NASA did no prioritize technical integrity. The Board’s recommendations were designed to remedy this by setting up an independent Technical Engineering Authority within NASA. In so recommending the Board was working on the assumption that, at least in an organizational context, structure creates culture. Structure here refers to the structure of positions, accountabilities and reporting lines within the organization. But we can and should extend this idea to cover other kinds of institutional arrangements, such as the incentive structures that operate within an organization. These are very influential in creating organizational cultures. In contrast, many safety interventions in organizations take the form of educational campaigns to “win the hearts and minds”.
This issue has been taken up by Emeritus Professor Andrew Hopkins in his most recent bookOrganizing for Safety: How Structure Creates Culture. His central thesis is that hearts and minds approaches alone are ineffective without appropriate structural changes. In August 2018, we held a workshop in Melbourne, Australia, in which participants were invited to respond to this thesis. For this Special Issue, we are looking to open this conversation to a widerSafety Scienceaudience. We invite papers grounded in organizational research, particularly those employing qualitative methodologies, that reflect on this question and provide further insights into the relationship between structure and culture.
Potential papers could explore:
The impact of changes to organizational structure, accountabilities and reporting lines
The impact of incentive structures on worker motivations
How safety regulation might be impacted by a focus on structural issues
How management of safety in major projects might be impacted by consideration of both structure and culture
The role of top management and communication of safety information to them
The relationship between structure and culture in sectors beyond aviation and the process industries.