ABSTRACT
The deployment of authoritative procedures – proceduralization – is proposed, from time to time, by institutional officers and external overseers to increase a sense of operational coherence and limit hazard. Procedures vary widely in substantive character and in the motivations that prompt adding them to the responsibilities of everyday organizational operations. Each procedural enactment, one might say, is an instance of trials with expected outcomes – as in 'trial-and-error learning'. Accountability standard administrative procedures (SAP) seek information to locate the offending, inattentive person, to detail the circumstance of the error and levy appropriate sanctions. The chapter inquires Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) contributions to trial-and-error learning, and the nature of the procedures of accountability that lurk in the shadows of emergency SOPs. The importance of procedural learning is increased due to trends in technology, operational interdependence and institutional frugalities.
