A systems approach to accident investigation: Does it evoke systems thinking in organizations?

Abstract: As systems become increasingly more complex, it is doubtful that conventional models of accident investigation can provide insight into accidents which occur in these complex systems. In safety science this problem has been recognized, and accident models using a systems approach have been developed to illuminate these complex systems. However, they have not been widely applied in the railway sector, the focus of this research. This research considers if the introduction of a systems approach accident-investigation model to members of a rail-transport company changes perceptions of safety and accidents. This research shows that the exposure to a systems approach accident-investigation model, in this case the AcciMap (Rasmussen, 1997), led to some increased understanding among some of the participants of the research: they showed some increase of systems-perspective characteristics in their contributions. Due to the limitations of this research, the generalizability of these results is limited. There is a need for further research into the effects the introduction of a systems approach to accident investigation has on organizations.