Abstract
We build a system dynamics model based on a conceptual model originally proposed by safety scientist Jens Rasmussen to explore the dynamics of a safety system subject to pressures for performance improvement. Rasmussen described forces that generate a drift in the boundary of acceptable performance that can push the organization towards “flirting with the margin” and thus operate at very high risk of catastrophic safety failure. Simulations of the model faithfully replicate the behavior described by Rasmussen and others in a variety of scenarios. Simulation experiments further illuminate the potential for risky behavior and point towards some approaches to better system safety.
Highlights
The influence on organizational performance of various organizational or individual objectives that are not entirely aligned is a common theme that appears in many streams of the scholarly and practitioner literature
We use a system dynamics model based on a conceptual model originally proposed by the influential safety scientist Jens Rasmussen to explore the dynamics of a safety system subject to pressures for performance improvement
To enable ready analysis of the dynamic behavior of the operating point with respect to the acceptable performance boundary, we focus on the dimension that represents the distance from the acceptable performance boundary
Summary
The influence on organizational performance of various organizational or individual objectives that are not entirely aligned is a common theme that appears in many streams of the scholarly and practitioner literature. The interactions can very likely result in “a systematic migration towards the boundary of functionally acceptable performance and, if crossing the boundary is irreversible, an error or accident may occur” (Rasmussen 1997: 189) Because he presents an explicit theory (comprising the variations and the gradients), displays the logic of the theory in diagrammatic form, and describes the dynamic patterns of behavior (migration towards the boundary) it explains, the causal argument Rasmussen presents is an ideal candidate for a detailed and systematic examination. Tradeoffs, and decisions follows a rich tradition in the study of organizations more broadly, not just in safety science (Cyert and March 1963; Nelson and Winter 1974), and such formalisms can lead to new insights. Following Sastry, we use the method to formalize verbal descriptions of causal relations and test the theory’s ability to explain the dynamic phenomena described by the authors
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