Managing Safety in Complexity: Making 'Working Safely' Possible Between Systems That Speak Different Codes (Risk + Safety / Sociology) - Softcover

Flinterman, Martijn

Softcover

ISBN 10: 908357170X ISBN 13: 9789083571706

Publisher: Unter Soziologen, 2025

Synopsis

Why do well-intentioned safety programs sometimes miss the mark? Why do accidents still occur, even when procedures are followed? And why do organisations often struggle to learn from failure?

This thought-provoking book introduces the groundbreaking insights of sociologist Niklas Luhmann to the field of Health, Safety, and Environment (HSE) management. Instead of focusing only on checklists, compliance, or behavior-based safety, it invites readers to consider how risk and safety are influenced by communication, meaning-making, and social structures.

Written for HSE professionals, safety leaders, risk managers, and reflective practitioners in general, this is not a typical 'how-to manage safety' manual. It is a fresh sociological perspective for understanding complexity, uncertainty, and adaptation in high-risk environments. Drawing on systems theory, organisational sociology, and real-world experience, the book opens up new ways of thinking about familiar challenges.

Whether you're curious about systems thinking or looking to enrich your approach to risk and safety, this first volume in the Risk + Safety / Sociology series offers insight, challenge, and space to rethink what it means to manage safety in complexity.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Martijn Flinterman is a sociologist specialising in organisational risk and HSE management. He has experience in both safety management practice and research.

Managing Safety in Complexity takes a fresh look at how we approach Health, Safety, and Environment (HSE) management. Instead of treating safety as something to be fully controlled or defined once and for all, it shows how safety is continually created in the ways we notice, talk about, and respond to what happens at work.

The book challenges familiar assumptions about compliance, risk, and human error. These aren't fixed truths but outcomes shaped by how people interact and communicate within organisations. Drawing on systems thinking, especially the work of Niklas Luhmann, it reframes safety as less about command and more about communication. And it shows how attempts to simplify complexity can sometimes generate new risks of their own.

Written for safety professionals, managers, and researchers, this book offers fresh perspectives on the human and organisational side of safety. It invites readers to see old problems in new ways, and to engage with the paradoxes of safety work rather than trying to wish them away.

Edition details

• Publisher: Unter Soziologen
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 908357170X
• ISBN 13: 9789083571706
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 159