Effective information collection in incident investigations: A systematic review and narrative synthesis

Abstract

Conducting effective incident investigations is a critical aspect of any safety management system. The investigative process begins with information collection and ends with organizational learning and change. The learning obtained from any incident is therefore heavily dependent on the quality of the information initially collected, yet this first stage in the process is often paid much less attention within the academic literature when compared to the analytical and learning stages. To identify factors that can influence high quality information collection within investigations, a systematic review was carried out, comparing and contrasting studies focused on investigation information collection across all safety–critical domains. Factors of influence identified include information sources, structured information collection systems, strategies, and challenges for conducting incident interviews and subjectivity in information collection (i.e., biases impacting incident investigations). Gaps in the literature were also identified, as was the need for empirical studies able to support the optimization of this vital first phase of the investigation process. This review enhances our understanding of the major factors involved in eliciting high quality information, whilst noting the dearth of literature in this space and the need for researchers from different domains to carry out further empirical investigations, to better understand this phenomenon in practice.