Safe operation as a social construct

Empirical work on organizations that manage com plex, potentially hazardous technical operations with a surprisingly low rate of serious incidents shows that operational safety is more than the managem ent or avoidance of risk or error. Safety so de ned is an ongoing intersubjective construct not readily measured in terms of safety cultures, structures, functions, or other commonly used descriptors of technical or organizational attributes that fail fully to take into account collective as well as individual agency. In the cases that the author has studied, it is represented by the interactive dynam ic between operators and managers, as well as their engagement with operational and organizational conditions. The maintenance of safe operation so de ned is an interactive, dynam ic and comm unicative act, hence it is particularly vulnerable to disruption or distortion by well-meant but imperfectly informed interventions aimed at eliminating or reducing `human error' that do not take into account the importance of the processes by which the construction of safe operation is created and maintained.