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How to Hunt a Very Reliable Organization
Author(s) -
Rochlin Gene I.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal of contingencies and crisis management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.007
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1468-5973
pISSN - 0966-0879
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-5973.2010.00626.x
Subject(s) - reliability (semiconductor) , ethnography , field (mathematics) , participant observation , core (optical fiber) , nuclear power plant , nuclear power , sociology , control (management) , power (physics) , public relations , knowledge management , engineering , computer science , political science , social science , anthropology , telecommunications , artificial intelligence , mathematics , quantum mechanics , ecology , physics , nuclear physics , pure mathematics , biology
A summary of my long engagement with Todd R. LaPorte as colleague, mentor, and fellow field worker in the study of large, reliability‐seeking organizations that manage risk‐bearing technologies is used to explore the relationship of our fieldwork approaches and techniques to other ethnographic means of sociological research. In particular, I discuss three organizations that have been at the core of what is generally known as the ‘high reliability organization’ project: air traffic control; nuclear power plant operations; and nuclear‐powered aircraft carriers at sea. In retrospect, our fieldwork was as intimate as that characterizing participant observers; yet, because of the complexity and risk involved in the sites of our study, we could only observe, and not participate.