When reliability fails: how post-failure complexity challenges HRO principles

In high reliability organizations (HROs), failures serve as a key moment for organizational learning intended to reorient the organization toward mindfulness-the cognitive and behavioral mechanism undergirding reliability. However, the culture produced by HRO principles often manifests after failure through highly structured, standardized, and regulatory-focused processes that create the appearance of organizational learning yet, paradoxically, generate unreliability at the organizational and individual levels. Using a case study of two U.S. Navy accidents, this paper examines three patterns of post-failure responses in HROs that expose the tension between HRO principles and the lived experience of a less stable organization after a failure event. Specifically, we focus on how post-failure response (a) becomes a source of restricted communication, (b) ignores or minimizes the socio-emotional needs of organizational members, and (c) fails to expose problematic power structures. We propose the Restorative HRO Principles as an alternative framework for facilitating post-failure organizational learning.