Attention, entrainment, and rules in high reliability organizations

• Main Author: LANG, Tingting
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2020
• Subjects: Attention; practice; rules; safety; high reliability organization; qualitative research; Organizational Behavior and Theory; Organization Development
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/etd_coll/278; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1278&context=etd_coll
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Chapter 1: How institutions enhance mindfulness: interactions between external regulators and front-line operators around safety rules (with Ravi S. Kudesia and Jochen Reb) How is it that some organizations can maintain nearly error-free performance, despite trying conditions? Within research on such high-reliability organizations, mindful organizing has been offered as a key explanation. It entails interaction patterns among front-line operators that keep them attentive to potential failures—and relies on them having the expertise and autonomy to address any such failures. In this study, we extend the mindful organizing literature, which emphasizes local interactions among operators, by considering the broader institutional context in which it occurs. Through interview, observational, and archival data of a high-reliability explosive demolitions firm in China, we find that external regulators can crucially enhance the mindful organizing of front-line operators as regulators and operators interact around safety rules. Regulators go beyond the interactions emphasized in institutional theory, whereby regulators help operators internalize the content of rules and follow the rules in practice. Rather, regulator interactions also help ensure the salience of rules, which enriches and distributes operator attention throughout the firm. We also find evidence of regulator learning, as interactions with operators help regulators improve rule content and the techniques by which rules remain salient. These findings expand our understanding of mindful organizing and the interactional dynamics of institutions. They also particularly speak to the debate over whether and how rules can enhance safety. Namely, through distinct practices that impact the content and salience of rules, regulators can increase standardization without diminishing operator autonomy. Chapter 2: Entrainment and the temporal structuring of attention: insights from a high-reliability explosive demolitions firm (with Ravi S. Kudesia and Jochen Reb) Attention has always been central to organization theory. What has remained implicit is that attention is a temporal phenomenon. Attention accumulates and dissipates at multiple timescales: it oscillates wavelike within a performance episode, decays gradually over the course of a performance episode, and withdraws in a step-like manner across multiple performance episodes. Organizations attempt to regulate the attention of front-line employees. But to the extent that attention has been examined as a stable phenomenon, rather than a temporal one, metacognitive practices that stabilize attention remain unexamined in organization theory. And to the extent that fluctuations in attention on the front lines generate systemic risks, these unexamined stabilizing practices constitute a core part of organizational reliability. In this case study, we examine a high-reliability explosive demolitions firm. Going beyond past work that identifies best practices shared across organizations, we instead uncover the logic of how several practices are bundled together in a single organization to stabilize front-line attention across these timescales. We uncover distinct bundles of attention regulation practices designed to proactively encourage attention and discourage inattention and to reactively learn from problems, including problems resulting from inattention. We theorize that these practices are bundled according to a logic of entrainment. Practices that proactively regulate the fluctuations of attention over time are mapped onto existing work routines that repeat cyclically across concentrically nested timescales—and reactive practices enhance learning by extracting lessons from mindless behaviors and feeding them back into entrained practice.