ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with establishing a workable balance between local factors and more remote influences in the search for the human causes of accidents involving complex well-defended systems, such as nuclear power plants and modern commercial aircraft. This topic is prompted by a suspicion that the pendulum may be swinging too far in present attempts to track down possible error and accident contributions that are widely separated in both time and place from the events themselves. The relative worth of the various causal categories is evaluated by reference to three questions central to the pursuit of system safety: to what extent does the consideration of individual, contextual, organisational, systemic, and societal factors add value to:
• an understanding of the causes of accidents and events? • the ability to predict the likelihood of future accidents and events? • most important, the remedial efforts that are made to reduce their future
occurrence?
