Preventing Corporate Accidents: An Ethical Approach

371 Pages·2008·2.07 MB·English

by  R B Whittingham

Preventing Corporate
Accidents
Dedication
The author dedicates this book to 28 colleagues who died as a result
of the explosion at the Nypro Chemical Plant at Flixborough, Lincolnshire, UK
on 1st June 1974 and to all those injured, bereaved or in any way affected
by the tragedy at the time and since.
The book is written in the hope that it will contribute in a small way
to the prevention of such accidents in the future.
Preventing Corporate
Accidents
An Ethical Approach
R.B. Whittingham
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Contents
Preface ix
Part I Companies at risk 1
Introduction to Part I 3
1 Management error 7
Introduction 7
Human error 9
The corporate environment 14
An ethical approach 16
Afternote 17
References 18
2 The corporate entity 19
Introduction 19
Corporate origins 20
Corporate characteristics 22
Corporate accountability 28
Corporate manslaughter 33
Critique of legislation 45
Conclusion 48
References 49
3 Corporate ethics 50
Introduction 50
Ethics 51
Ethics and the law 53
Individual ethics 58
Corporate ethical behaviour 61
The influence of human actors 64
Managerial and professional ethics 68
Conclusion 72
References 75
Part II Strategies to prevent corporate accidents 77
Introduction to Part II 79
vi Contents
4 Safety culture 83
Introduction 83
Culture 84
Organizational culture 89
Safety culture 98
Changing the safety culture 107
Case studies 111
References 114
5 Understand the risk 116
Introduction 116
What is risk? 117
Expressions of risk 120
Risk assessment 128
Risk perception 137
Case studies 141
References 142
6 Safety regulation 144
Introduction 144
Historical background 145
Safety regulation in the UK 147
Risk acceptance criteria 154
The ALARP principle 158
Reducing the regulatory burden 164
Case studies 170
References 173
7 Safety management 176
Introduction 176
Regulatory and standard setting approaches to safety management 178
Auditing approaches to safety management 185
Behaviour-based approach to safety management 190
Analytical approaches to safety management 197
A systems approach to managing safety 198
Case studies 206
References 208
8 The learning organization 209
Introduction 209
Organizational learning 210
Learning from accidents 215
Building a just culture 230
Information disclosure 234
Case studies in failures of organizational learning 243
References 246
Contents vii
9 Corporate social responsibility 248
Introduction 248
Corporate ethical policy 250
Corporate citizenship 255
Corporate structure models 256
Corporate social responsibility 266
Case studies 273
References 274
10 Conclusions 276
Summary 276
Part I: Companies at risk 277
Part II: Strategies to prevent corporate accidents 281
Case studies 285
A better way forward? 287
References 288
Appendix 1 Case studies in corporate manslaughter 289
Introduction 289
A1.1 The capsize of the Herald of Free Enterprise 290
A1.2 The Southall rail accident 298
References 307
Disclaimer 307
Appendix 2 Case studies in corporate accidents 308
Introduction 308
A2.1 The loss of the space shuttle Columbia 309
A2.2 The Davis-Besse nuclear power plant incident 314
A2.3 The fire and explosion at the Conoco-Phillips Humber
oil refinery 318
A2.4 Children’s heart surgery at the Bristol Royal Infirmary,
1984--1995 323
A2.5 The Tokai-Mura criticality accident 330
A2.6 The disposal of the Brent Spar oil storage facility 338
A2.7 The Tylenol incident, Chicago, Illinois, USA, 1982 342
References 344
Appendix 3 Safety management tables 346
Reference 351
Index 353
(cid:84)(cid:104)(cid:105)(cid:115)(cid:32)(cid:112)(cid:97)(cid:103)(cid:101)(cid:32)(cid:105)(cid:110)(cid:116)(cid:101)(cid:110)(cid:116)(cid:105)(cid:111)(cid:110)(cid:97)(cid:108)(cid:108)(cid:121)(cid:32)(cid:108)(cid:101)(cid:102)(cid:116)(cid:32)(cid:98)(cid:108)(cid:97)(cid:110)(cid:107)
Preface
The idea of writing a book about corporate accidents followed completion of my
previous book, which addressed the complex subject of ‘human error’ and its role
in accident causation. The importance of the subject was underlined by the fact
that according to the UK Health and Safety Regulator around 80 per cent of acci-
dents are caused by human error. But when my last book was completed there
still seemed to be unfinished business. I was particularly concerned with the part
played by the corporate environment in causing (or preventing) accidents, an
aspect which was outside the scope of my previous book. I therefore decided to
investigate the subject of corporate responsibility for health, safety and environ-
ment and in particular the failures of corporate systems which have led in the past
to serious accidents often involving many fatalities. The objective is to draw atten-
tion to the elements of these higher level systems which are essential to accident
prevention in the hope that companies may be able to recognize and correct any
deficiencies or improve their existing systems. It turned out that the subject matter
is more related to legal, sociological and organizational studies than to engineer-
ing, psychology and ergonomics, the disciplines most relevant to my last book and
with which most human factors practitioners are familiar. In the first part of the
book I have dealt with subjects such as the nature of the corporation and how the
legal concept of ‘corporate personhood’ is acted out by various stakeholders in
order to fulfil the necessary responsibilities for accident prevention. The book also
enters the difficult and sometimes controversial area of corporate ethics and later
in the book it is shown how this is an important aspect of preventing corporate
accidents. In the second part of the book I have selected six corporate systems
which, I believe, when properly addressed, comprise important strategies to pre-
vent corporate accidents. In the process I have tried to identify what I believe are
the most important elements of these systems regarding accident prevention. The
choice of these corporate systems is supported by a number of detailed historical
accident case studies described in appendices. If this book can go some way
towards assisting companies and their directors, senior managers and safety
experts to reduce the chance of a serious corporate accident then it will have ful-
filled its purpose.