ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book proposes ways of dealing with natural incident reports in a way that extends the normal qualitative methods in vogue, turning reports into the kinds of data necessary for the working in high-risk industries whilst preserving the philosophical status of language as performative and symbolic. It provides a method for dealing with the natural discursive accounts that people provide when things go wrong, in a way that there is, firstly, agreement about their meaning. The book suggests that data are actually or potentially available to high-consequence companies that can enhance safety performance, but that data are seldom utilised to the full. Whilst inductivism still enjoys great prestige in some circles, the whole notion is based on outdated philosophies of both science and knowledge.
