The never-ending nightshift: insights into organisational adaptation during COVID-19
The never-ending nightshift: insights into organisational adaptation during COVID-19
Air traffic control organisations played a crucial role during the COVID-19 pandemic, working to ensure the safety of the air traffic that continued to operate, despite the significant decrease in the number of flights. Air traffic control organisations implemented various measures to address the pandemic's challenges and these measures maintained high levels of safety and operational efficiency whilst reducing the risk of virus transmission among staff. This paper uses unique access to interviews with senior decision makers, organisational data and industrial insights to explore the adaptations that occurred to air traffic control in the UK to manage the unprecedented crisis. The application of Critical Decision Method (CDM) paired with a set of adaptation factors is used to explore and help understand this organisational response and the synthesised results form a unique narrative of safety-critical decision-making under uncertainty. The paper presents valuable insights for human factors practitioners on how adaptation is an essential component of safety management in complex sociotechnical systems and provides examples of practices that could be applied in other domains. Furthermore, the paper sets out how balancing adaptive forces provide a possible explanation of adaptive capability in organisations and suggests a future direction for safety management practices.
Adaptation, COVID-19, Crisis Response, Safety Management
Foster, Craig J.
5559934e-d31a-4187-8bc1-bf7f39ddf4f4
Plant, Katherine L.
3638555a-f2ca-4539-962c-422686518a78
McIlroy, Rich C.
68e56daa-5b0b-477e-a643-3c7b78c1b85d
17 December 2024
Foster, Craig J.
5559934e-d31a-4187-8bc1-bf7f39ddf4f4
Plant, Katherine L.
3638555a-f2ca-4539-962c-422686518a78
McIlroy, Rich C.
68e56daa-5b0b-477e-a643-3c7b78c1b85d
Foster, Craig J., Plant, Katherine L. and McIlroy, Rich C.
(2024)
The never-ending nightshift: insights into organisational adaptation during COVID-19.
Safety Science, 184, [106740].
(doi:10.1016/j.ssci.2024.106740).
Abstract
Air traffic control organisations played a crucial role during the COVID-19 pandemic, working to ensure the safety of the air traffic that continued to operate, despite the significant decrease in the number of flights. Air traffic control organisations implemented various measures to address the pandemic's challenges and these measures maintained high levels of safety and operational efficiency whilst reducing the risk of virus transmission among staff. This paper uses unique access to interviews with senior decision makers, organisational data and industrial insights to explore the adaptations that occurred to air traffic control in the UK to manage the unprecedented crisis. The application of Critical Decision Method (CDM) paired with a set of adaptation factors is used to explore and help understand this organisational response and the synthesised results form a unique narrative of safety-critical decision-making under uncertainty. The paper presents valuable insights for human factors practitioners on how adaptation is an essential component of safety management in complex sociotechnical systems and provides examples of practices that could be applied in other domains. Furthermore, the paper sets out how balancing adaptive forces provide a possible explanation of adaptive capability in organisations and suggests a future direction for safety management practices.
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COVID Response Manuscript v2 - accepted with minor edit
- Accepted Manuscript
Restricted to Repository staff only until 17 December 2027.
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Text
Title Page (with author details)
- Accepted Manuscript
Restricted to Repository staff only until 17 December 2027.
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More information
Accepted/In Press date: 25 November 2024
e-pub ahead of print date: 17 December 2024
Published date: 17 December 2024
Keywords:
Adaptation, COVID-19, Crisis Response, Safety Management
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 496897
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/496897
ISSN: 0925-7535
PURE UUID: a664d37c-1eff-4738-9fb8-cf2f84fb3030
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Date deposited: 08 Jan 2025 12:36
Last modified: 11 Jan 2025 02:53
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Author:
Craig J. Foster
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