Learning Disabilities for Regulators

In hazardous industries, regulatory agencies confront the dual mission of enforcing regulations while learning from experience. This research examines how incentives, designed for rule enforcement, influence the gathering and interpretation of hazard-related information that is essential for learning. It explores a high reliability theory argument that strict adherence to standard operating procedures can coexist with organizational learning from mishaps. Drawing on interviews with participants in aviation safety monitoring systems, the research analyzes archival data. The findings suggest that incentives for compliance alternatively decreased or increased the availability of hazard-related iinformation, depending on the design system. The research supports a political theory of organizational reliability.