Ethical Control within Systemic Accident Analysis Models

Abstract

The development of technological systems is leading to new kinds of safety issues. Systemic accident analysis (SAA) models enable safety professionals to examine the root causes of accidents. The theoretical foundation of different SAA models is considering accidents as a consequence of uncontrolled interactions within the system. Furthermore, preventing and reducing accidents requires analyzing all the technical and nontechnical aspects of control in the system. Ethical shortcomings as non-technical elements like mismanagement, conflict of interest, and inattention to safety play a crucial role in the system failures. Ethical control as a non-technical control and an aspect of human factors especially in the management area is contributing to the prevention or the occurrence of many accidents. In addition, ethical control may surround all system components in order to influence the advancement of the system purpose and avoid failure. In this study, we recommend that it is necessary to expand the concept of control in SAA models so that ethical control is considered as an essential component of the control structure in SAA models. Besides, we introduce ethical control in three levels within the system: ethical considerations of policy-makings, ethical assessment of decision makings, and ethical evaluation of performances.