Mindfulness in the regulatory shadow: How institutional rules enhance organizational safety

• Main Authors: LANG, Tingting, KUDESIA, Ravi S., REB, Jochen
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2019
• Subjects: Human Resources Management; Organizational Behavior and Theory
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/6916
• Institution: Singapore Management University

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 mindful organizing, which emphasizes local interactions among operators, by considering the broader institutional context in which it occurs. Through interview, archival, and observational data of a high-reliability explosive demolitions firm, we find that external regulators, and their institutional rules, can crucially enhance the mindful organizing of front-line operators. Regulators go beyond the encoding function emphasized in institutional theory, whereby they help operators internalize the content of rules. Rather, regulators also play reinforcing and reinstating functions that ensure rule salience, in addition to ensuring that rule content remains intact. We also find evidence of regulator learning, as interactions with operators help them improve rule content and the techniques by which rules remain salient. These findings expand our model of mindful organizing, and speak to the functions of rules in safety, and the micro- interactional dynamics of institutions.