Managing Tolerable Risk: How Are Significant Organizational Mishaps Remembered in the Training Function of the Nuclear Power Industry?

Retaining lessons learned from organizational mishaps is important to organizations that use high risk technologies. High risk technology organizations, such as the nuclear power electricity generation industry, rely on their collective organizational memory of mishaps to prevent future mishaps and protect the safety of the public.  The 1979 accident at Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear power plant was a defining moment in the nuclear power industry in the United States.  Since TMI, the nuclear power industry has emphasized using operating experience to remind workers potential mishaps. The 1986 explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor developed an awareness for the need for international collaboration in establishing uniform operating standards for nuclear power plants so as to ensure nuclear safety.  The nuclear catastrophe at Fukushima in 2012 reminded the world once again about the risk of nuclear technology.

Using the theoretical lens of collective memory and commemoration, this study explored how workers in the training department of the nuclear power industry retain memory of significant organizational mishaps by focusing on what workers pay attention to, what stories they tell about organizational mishaps, as well as how mishaps are categorized and commemorated, and the role management plays in helping to retain operating experience of significant events.

This case study combined interviews and document analysis, as well as ethnographic observations of training conducted at a nuclear power plant site to learn how significant industry mishaps were remembered.