The book “Safe Performance in a World of Global Networks” published by Springer

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What’s in it?

This open access book provides an analytical and critical outlook, by leading scholars, of the impact of various trends in the quality of collaboration and resulting safety outcomes that arise from the evolution of traditional integrated production within a single firm into a complex web of partnerships and supply chains. In the face of increasing fragmentation within industrial production and the associated rise in the complexity of inter-organizational communication and transaction, this book analyses causal factors such as cost pressures, globalization of demand, increasingly flexible resource allocation and work organization, changes in legal liability and the possibilities afforded by information technology.

Various case studies focus on the effects of crossing boundaries between organizations, between different trades and professions and between countries, assessing the effect of variations in regulatory structures and national cultures. Furthermore, they illustrate the wide range of organizational forms to be found in high-hazard industries today and the impact, potential or real, of the variety of forms of partnership on safety and well-being at work. The contributors assess the effect of out-sourcing and of various forms of partnership and governance on safety at work and how they can be made to support the prevention of major accident hazards.

The articles and their authors

The book features 10 articles written by international experts invited for the academic seminar about “Contracting relationships in high-hazard industries”.

• Safety and Subcontracting, de Jean-Christophe Le Coze (Ineris, France)
• Work, Organisational Fragmentation and Safety, de Petter Almklov (Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway)
• Subcontracting, Repeat Latent Failures and Workplace Disasters, de Michael Quinlan (University of New South Wales, Australia)
• Organisational Lucidity and the Impact of Subcontracting, de Jean Pariès (FonCSI, France)
• How to Break the Silence of Subcontractors, de Jorge Walter (Universidad de San Andrés, Argentina)
• Subcontracting Safety (Cases), de Jean-Christophe Le Coze (Ineris, France)
• Complementarity: Ensuring that Contracts Are Compatible with Collaborative Relationships, de Bruce Pinnington (University of Liverpool, UK)
• Boundaries: Their Influence on Managing Safety in Outsourcing, de Colin Pilbeam (Cranfield University, UK)
• Sfumato as a Metaphor for Creating a Common Understanding in Complex Projects, de Nadezhda Gotcheva (VTT Technical Research Centre, Finland)
• The Unsung Virtues of Ambiguity in Subcontracted Work, de Nicolas Lot (EDF Lab, France) et Benoît Journé (University of Nantes, France)

This is the 12th FonCSI book published by Springer in its “SpringerBriefs in Safety Management collection”; there were nearly 3,500 downloads in less than a month!

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