The part that we play: Engineers’ perceptions of their responsibility for public safety

Abstract

In the study of accident causation and prevention, safety research favors organizational explanations that minimize consideration of the agency of individuals. Challenging this framing of how to promote excellent safety performance in organizations, this paper presents an analysis of the perceptions of responsibility among practicing engineers regarding their role in public safety. Drawing on data from professional development workshops for gas sector engineers involving close to 100 participants, we found that engineers adopt a backward-looking responsibility framework to understand accident cases as linked to engineering practice for accident prevention. Many participants explain that they are far from the passive actors an organizational view of accidents would suggest. In a forward-looking responsibility framework, they describe the importance of speaking up, the professional obligation to do so and strategies to be more effective in articulating recommendations to management. While they do not consider themselves as passive actors, the engineers were also acutely aware of the challenges of asserting influence in large organizations. This research shows the complex and nuanced interrelationship between engineering and management decision making, highlighting an under researched area of safety science.