Hi, I’m Ben Hutchinson and thanks for visiting my site. This is a collection of research summaries posted to LinkedIn.
*** Importantly, this is a labour of love and NOT a commercial project subject to peer review or double checks. I’ve likely made a lot of mistakes in my analysis of the research. So, please, don’t quote me on anything and instead go to the original source to check the claims. ***
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Safe operation as a social construct
This 1999 paper is an interesting read, exploring the social nature of ‘safety’. Some points I liked are: · “operational safety is more than the management or avoidance of risk or error…[but rather] an ongoing intersubjective construct not readily measured in terms of safety cultures, structures, functions, or other commonly used descriptors of technical or organizational…
The effects of recent sleep duration, sleep quality, and current sleepiness on eyewitness memory
I found this interesting – prior night sleep quality affects the recollection of details from events. This study assessed the ability of people to recall central and peripheral details about a crime that they witnessed (via video). Sleep length and sleepiness was assessed via self-report questionnaire (so, not the most accurate for sleep…) They found that:…
The process and perspective of serious incident investigations in adult community mental health services: integrative review and synthesis
This review paper explored the research behind the quality of suicide investigations, limitations of current investigation approaches, and their potential for organisational learning. A safety-II lens was applied. Nevertheless, I’ve skipped most of the S-II stuff in the paper as I felt it was underdeveloped (likely influenced by the scarcity of evidence available when this…
Six stages to the New View of human error
This older (2007) paper with Sid Dekker as co-author may interest you. It’s a quick read (link in comments). This paper studied four different organisations over 2 years in their efforts to learn from failure. They distinguished six stages in an organisation’s “growth to embracing the ‘new view’ of human error and system safety’. They…
Employee well-being outcomes from individual-level mental health interventions: Cross-sectional evidence from the United Kingdom
This interesting study has already done the rounds – but worth a read. Via survey of >46k workers in 233 organisations in the UK, it explored the evidence behind individual-level workplace mental health interventions. Providing background: · Promotion of workers’ well-being is common in contemporary British workplaces, with recent data suggesting over half of UK…
People with more extreme attitudes towards science have self-confidence in their understanding of science, even if this is not justified
Oof, this is a tad awkward for the conspiracy movements. This study found that people with more negative attitudes and trust towards science were more likely not to actually understand the science (in this case, genetically modified foods). Key findings: The study is open access so you can read it for yourself. Of course, there’s…
How does leading eyewitness statements influence attributions of blame in investigations? Does blame shift between people?
How does leading eyewitness statements influence and shift attributions of blame after incidents? This upcoming study explored this question. Participants watched a video of an incident between two people and read eyewitness statements that either blamed somebody for the incident or blamed nobody. A key intention was to study if blame conformity occurred in response…
Root Cause Analysis investigation tools inadequate for suicide risk and prevention
What is the quality of suicide investigations, limitations of investigation approaches, and their potential for organisational learning? This upcoming paper explored these questions in adult community mental health services, drawing on a safety-II lens. Key findings: Root cause analysis–· >80% of the studies placed root cause analysis (RCA) as the dominant approaches for suicide investigation · The…
Paperwork, management, and safety: Towards a bureaucratization of working life and a lack of hands-on supervision
This explored the relationship between paperwork, management and safety by way of a web-based survey of 187 offshore managers from the same oil company. It’s argued that various industries, like oil & gas, face increasing degrees of administrative & bureaucratic tasks compared to earlier time periods and this affects managers’ abilities to perform hands-on leadership.…
Learning from the failure of autonomous and intelligent systems: Accidents, safety, and sociotechnical sources of risk
A fascinating read from Carl Macrae (his work is always good – I’ve covered a few of his papers), exploring the sociotechnical sources of risk of autonomous and intelligent systems (AIS). Reanalysis of the 2018 fatal Uber self-driving car crash via multiple reports was used as a case. Five sources of sociotechnical risk were conceptualised:…
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Safety & Performance Research Summaries 