This article provides alternative viewpoints for what an HRO should look like. It contrasts normal accident theory with High Reliability Theory (HRT). It also shows how some organizations cannot become HROs, though they should continue striving to do so. HRO is a process, not an achievement. The authors suggest that NASA cannot become an HRO, […]
2008
Organizing for High Reliability: Process of Collective Mindfulness
HRO enables adaptive learning and reliability simultaneously. The article includes a history of HRO theory and provides an explanation for where HRO fits in modern organizational development. The article includes a description of collective mindfulness, a theme recurring in HRO literature. Weick, K., Sutcliffe, K., & Obstfeld, D. (2008). Organizing for High Reliability: Process of Collective […]
Learning from Patient Safety Incidents: Creating Participative Risk Regulation in Healthcare
This article’s authors discuss the concept of participatory regulation, where the employees of a firm help regulate safety beyond the level of outside or governmental agencies. A comparison is made between aviation regulation and medical regulation, and the authors discuss how the two industries can share insight. This is a component of HRO theory, which emerged in part […]
High-Reliability Organizations: Changing the Culture of Care in Two Medical Units
This is a narrative about the creation and implementation of High Reliability Organization theory in two healthcare organizations. The emergence of HRO theory from firefighting and other high-risk fields is discussed, and applied to a business setting. The barriers to the process were addressed, and the results of several years of HRO in practice are […]