accidents in high risk social technical system: one proposal of "institutional planning" for the electric energy systems

Abstract

The author makes a contrast between the conventional planning and what was called institutional planning and/or design. All this discussion was undertaken having as a background the notion of paradigm. Because of that, institutional design is understood, here, as a concept far away from the well known "institutional building" in the public administration literature. Other notions such as developmental style and organizational style are discussed also. At an empirical level, accidents are seen as excellent indicators of a certain organizational style, which is approached in terms of some strategic characteristics, such as: meaning, self-reliance; requisite variety; permanent learning and democratic learning.