ABSTRACT
With growing outsourcing in the petroleum industry, operations are becoming increasingly interorganizationally complex. This raises the question of how interorganizational complexity influences safety. The aim of the research project “interorganizational complexity and risk of major accidents” was to gain a better understanding of safety challenges associated with interorganizational complexity. Three studies have been completed. In this paper, we present the main findings from the research project and discuss how the resulting knowledge can best be applied in the petroleum industry. The findings call for more awareness concerning interorganizational safety challenges in the industry, and points to specific areas in which challenges may arise. In particular, coordinating work processes, ensuring sufficient levels of competence and transferring lessons learned and best practices across companies, are identified as such areas. However, the findings also imply practices that help manage interorganizational complexity. The presence of high-quality work relations appear to be important to achieve safety performance across collaborating companies. In this regard, middle managers appear to play a central role in terms of aligning employees from collaborating companies towards a shared focus on operational and safety related goals.
