Search Results for: "andrew hopkins"

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New book on pipeline safety has OHS lessons for all

Any new book by Andrew Hopkins is a cause for excitement.  The latest book co-written with Associate Professor Jan Hayes* focusses, primarily, on two pipeline disasters in the United States but has sufficient information and thoughts for those OHS professionals outside this sector and jurisdiction. “Nightmare Pipeline Failures: Fantasy planning, black swans and integrity management” … Continue reading “New book on pipeline safety has OHS lessons for all”

Serious questions raised (again) about the role of safety culture

One of the central tenets of modern safety management is the need to establish a safety culture.  However recent Australian research has cast serious doubt on whether this current belief is valid or useful. In October 2014, the Safety Institute of Australia launched several new chapters to the Body of Knowledge (BoK) project.  One of …

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New Zealand railways, red tape, politics and workplace deaths

On 28 April 2013, New Zealand lawyer, Hazel Armstrong, published a 48-page book on how workplace fatalities and the management of the NZ rail industry has been related to politics and economics. This is an ideological position more than anything else and the evidence is thin in much of this short book but there is considerable power in … Continue reading “New Zealand railways, red tape, politics and workplace deaths”

Latest Andrew Hopkins book focusses on engineering decisions

The latest Andrew Hopkins book steers clear of analysing corporate leadership, and this is a good thing.  Australian National University sociologist, Andrew Hopkins, has established an international reputation for his enlightening analyses of the failures of organisational culture in major disasters but his latest book, Disastrous Decisions: The Human and Organisational Causes of the Gulf of Mexico Blowout, purposely … Continue reading “Latest Andrew Hopkins book focusses on engineering decisions”

Where are the safety profession thinkers?

The most successful safety management improvements come from a multi-disciplinary approach. The biggest leaps in safety management have come not from the established safety academic profession of engineering but from those outside that discipline – sociologists (Andrew Hopkins) , psychologists (James Reason)  and, increasingly, philosophers. Recently philosopher Alain de Botton  was interviewed in the Australian magazine, … Continue reading “Where are the safety profession thinkers?”

New Tooma OHS book augurs well for the rest of the series on due diligence

Tooma is a leading figure in Australia’s analysis and application of occupational health and safety (OHS) laws.  He has also been a regular author for publisher CCH.  His latest book on workplace health and safety is entitled “Due Diligence: Duty of Officers”.  The process for harmonisation of OHS laws in Australia continues to be a … Continue reading “New Tooma OHS book augurs well for the rest of the series on due diligence”

Managerial OHS walk-arounds and D&O liabilities

The latest edition of The National Research Centre for Occupational Health and Safety Regulation’s newsletter lists two new working papers, one from Andrew Hopkins and one from Neil Foster.  Both should be obligatory reading. Hopkins discusses how to increase the value of the “management walk-arounds” an increasingly common key performance indicator for senior executives.  Hopkins, … Continue reading “Managerial OHS walk-arounds and D&O liabilities”