ABSTRACT
In this book, we have introduced a number of concepts to help improve management decision-making for high-risk organizations (HROs) under stress. Our objective in putting together a set of concepts is to improve the management processes. The concepts that we have introduced are a cybernetic organization model based upon the functions of the human body, namely cognitive processing; manual actions to be taken; the automatic action (controls); feedback mechanisms; learning from past experiences; input information derived from sensors, etc. We introduced Beer’s model, viable systems model (VSM), to mimic the characteristics of an industrial organization. The organizational model is then linked to the utility/plant model, the external and internal disturbances, and the regulators, so one can understand how all these things function together: what disturbances can lead to accidents and the responses of the organization and the plant are, given the accident initiators.
