Adaptation as source of safety in complex sociotechnical systems

Abstract

In the last 25 years, new theories, ideas, and disciplines of safety have emerged to address the evolving nature of safety management in complex sociotechnical systems. This thesis investigates the critical role of adaptation in ensuring safety with reference to UK air traffic control, emphasising the continuous, real-time demand compensations made by individuals to ensure safety through trade-offs, self-organisation, informal practices and strategies.
The thesis presents the results of a structured exploration of adaptation and begins with a comprehensive review of the literature, grounded in human factors (HF) and safety research, to define the concept of adaptation and describe its many facets. It identifies the highly influential role of human operators in creating safety and the adaptive capability that they provide to appreciate the context of the system, the changing demands placed upon it in day-to-day operations and to respond with proportionate and appropriate actions that maintain system performance. Adaptation is characterised by nine factors, highlighting its multi-faceted nature and its essential contribution to system resilience, occurring in real-time yet often ‘hidden in plain sight’.
Through a series of diverse case studies from UK air traffic control, the thesis validates the explanatory power of these factors. These case studies leverage unique access to decision-makers and frontline controllers, exploring adaptation at the level of the individual, team and organisation, and from both positive and maladaptive perspectives. A range of HF methods are employed to explore adaptation, and a multi-method framework is presented. Additionally, the thesis critically appraises the challenges of predicting adaptation in industrial risk management and proposes a novel semi-structured interview technique with the potential for broad industrial and cross-domain applicability.
The thesis further examines the challenges of managing adaptation in highly regulated industries, discussing the balance between the need for structure and control in work whilst also encouraging innovation and learning. It highlights the importance of capacities for both adaptive innovation to test novel strategies and adaptive memory to retain experience and reapply beneficial strategies. Practical guidance is provided for safety practitioners on harnessing and developing these adaptive capacities within the framework of the Safety Management System.
The thesis contributes to safety science by defining adaptation, describing methods for its exploration, validating the explanatory power of this approach through case studies, proposing a practical methodology for predicting adaptation and effects on adaptive capacities and offering guidance on managing adaptation and adaptive capacities in safety-related industries and complex sociotechnical systems.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Craig James Foster: orcid.org/0000-0001-7294-3727

ORCID for Katie Plant: orcid.org/0000-0002-4532-2818

ORCID for Rich McIlroy: orcid.org/0000-0003-0326-8101

ORCID for Neville Stanton: orcid.org/0000-0002-8562-3279

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