Introduction

This volume contains a selection of original contributions from internationally reputed scholars in the field of risk management in socio-technical systems with high hazard potential.

First Major Section

Addresses fundamental psychological and socio-technical concepts in the field of risk perception, risk management and learning systems for safety improvement.

Second Section

Deals with the variety of procedures for system safety analysis. It covers strategies of analyzing automation problems and of safety culture as well as the analysis of social dynamics in field settings and of field experiments.

Third Part

Illustrates the utilization of basic concepts and analytic approaches by way of case studies of designing man-machine systems and in various industrial sectors such as intensive care wards, aviation, offshore oil drilling and chemical industry.

In linking basic theoretical conceptual notions and analytic strategies to detailed case studies in the area of hazardous work organizations, the volume differs from and complements more theoretical works such as Human Error (J. Reason, 1990) and more general approaches such as New Technologies and Human Error (J. Rasmussen, K. Duncan, J. Leplat, Eds.)