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Remaining safe by working at the edge of compliance and adaptation: reflective practices in aviation and air traffic control

Kontogiannis Thomas, Malakis Stathis

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Summary

Most efforts in safety management have focused on formal work organisation (e.g. procedures and safety rules), neglecting issues of compatibility with practitioner work practices; as a result, compliance – adaptation tradeoffs may arise that are difficult to resolve in complex situations. This article reviews earlier research in communities of practice and uses an ethnographic study to examine how practices evolve and what conditions make them vulnerable to failure in the context of air traffic control. System dynamics are used to model the development and revision of work practices, as well as their interaction with the formal work organisation. Several proposals are made how to support the processes of ‘reflection-in-action’ (i.e. mindful adaptation of practices) and ‘reflection-on-action’ (i.e. articulation and transmission of practices) that help practitioners in revising and reflecting on their practices to achieve better adaptation. The discussion addresses many challenges in integrating the formal work organisation with practitioner practices, transmitting good practices across organisations and promoting organisational learning.

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