Linköping Studies in Science and Technology

The cover photo is taken on Gotland, Sweden iii To cope with variations, disturbances, and unexpected events in complex socio-technical systems people are required to continuously adapt to the changing environment, sometimes in novel and innovative ways. This thesis investigates adaptive performance in complex work settings across domains, with a focus on examining what enables and disables successful adaptations, and how contextual factors shape performance. Examples of adaptive performance studies include a crisis command team dealing with the loss of key personnel, a crew coping with unreliable system feedback in the cockpit, and a nursing team managing an overload of patients. The two main contributions of this thesis is the analysis of cases of people coping with variations and disturbances, and the development of conceptual models to report findings, structure cases, and make sense of sharp-end adaptations in complex work settings. The findings emphasise that adaptive performance outside procedures and textbook scenarios at the sharp end is a critical ability to cope with variation and unexpected events. However, the results also show that adaptations may come at the cost of new vulnerabilities and system brittleness. Analysing adaptive performance in everyday events informs safety management by making visible limitations and possibilities of system design, organisational structures, procedures, and training. vii Throughout the journey of writing this thesis I have enjoyed the support of many wonderful people, and for this I am very grateful. There are a few I would like to thank in particular. First of all, I want to thank my advisors. Henrik Eriksson, for guiding and supporting me through the ups and downs of the thesis-writing process, with encouragement and assurance. I greatly appreciate you always taking the time to discuss any concern, no matter how big or small. Jonas Lundberg, for your enthusiasm, for offering new perspectives when I got stuck, and for always emphasising my successes rather than failures ;-). Rogier Woltjer, for being a source of inspiration, for your never-ending support, and generous sharing of your time and knowledge, and last, but not least, for being a great friend. The decision to become a graduate student was not something I had planned on when starting my undergraduate studies but the result of fun and interesting work while working on my master's degree. So, thank you Jiri Trnka, for encouraging me to continue my studies. Thank you also to my old flat mates Johan Blomkvist and Fabian …