Organization Science
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ORGANIZATION SCIENCE
Vol. 1, No. 2, March-April 1990, pp. 160-176
DOI: 10.1287/orsc.1.2.160
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Some Characteristics of One Type of High Reliability Organization

Karlene H. Roberts

Haas School of Business Administration, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720

This paper is concerned with defining organizational processes necessary to operate safely technologically complex organizations that can do great physical harm to themselves and their surrounding environments. The paper first argues that existing organizational research is little help in understanding organizational processes in such organizations. It then identifies nuclear powered aircraft carriers as examples of potentially hazardous organizations with histories of excellent operations. The paper then examines a set of components of "risk" identified by Perrow (1984) and antecedents to catastrophe elucidated by Shrivastava (1986) and discusses how carriers deal with these factors to lessen their potentially negative effects. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research.

Key Words: high reliability; organization; hazardous organizations; accountability; reliability



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