Drifting into failure: theorising the dynamics of disaster incubation

Ergonomic theory holds that accidents are preceded by periods of gradually increasing (but essentially unrecognised) risk, known originally in man-made disaster theory as the incubation period. This paper discusses the theorising of the dynamics of such accident incubation. It considers theoretical contributions – ranging from high-reliability to control theory to resilience engineering – for their ability to illuminate the driving forces behind a gradual shift in norms and erosion of safety margins, and for their ability to effectively track and represent such changes over time.

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