TY - JOUR
T1 - The rise of defensive engineering: How personal liability considerations impact decision-making
AU - Hayes, Jan
AU - MASLEN, Sarah
AU - Scott-Young, Christina
AU - Wong, Janice
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Energy Pipelines CRC, supported through the Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centres Program; the cash and in-kind support from the APGA RSC is gratefully acknowledged.
Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Energy Pipelines CRC, supported through the Australian Government?s Cooperative Research Centres Program; the cash and in-kind support from the APGA RSC is gratefully acknowledged.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2018
Y1 - 2018
N2 - Based on a survey of Australian engineers (n = 275) this paper examines the impact of personal liability considerations on engineering decision-making. Almost all respondents who make high-stakes decisions saw questions of liability as having both positive (90%) and negative (87%) impacts. Our analysis shows that awareness of personal liability acts to focus the attention of many engineers on the moral dimension of their work. However, it also encourages more expensive decision-making, inhibition of innovation and professional paralysis. We argue that while personal legal liability is a legitimate way to focus engineers’ attention on the potential impact of their work, a problem arises when decision-makers are held responsible for disasters over which they had little control. The focus then shifts to ‘defensive engineering’ practices that are aimed at limiting individual liability rather than disaster prevention. Legal processes that are seen to unfairly allocate blame do not encourage practices that support future disaster prevention.
AB - Based on a survey of Australian engineers (n = 275) this paper examines the impact of personal liability considerations on engineering decision-making. Almost all respondents who make high-stakes decisions saw questions of liability as having both positive (90%) and negative (87%) impacts. Our analysis shows that awareness of personal liability acts to focus the attention of many engineers on the moral dimension of their work. However, it also encourages more expensive decision-making, inhibition of innovation and professional paralysis. We argue that while personal legal liability is a legitimate way to focus engineers’ attention on the potential impact of their work, a problem arises when decision-makers are held responsible for disasters over which they had little control. The focus then shifts to ‘defensive engineering’ practices that are aimed at limiting individual liability rather than disaster prevention. Legal processes that are seen to unfairly allocate blame do not encourage practices that support future disaster prevention.
KW - accident investigation
KW - blame
KW - expertise
KW - professional practice
KW - Safety
KW - Accident investigation
KW - Professional practice
KW - Blame
KW - Expertise
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85032373728&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.mendeley.com/research/rise-defensive-engineering-personal-liability-considerations-impact-decisionmaking
U2 - 10.1080/13669877.2017.1391319
DO - 10.1080/13669877.2017.1391319
M3 - Article
VL - 21
SP - 1131
EP - 1145
JO - Journal of Risk Research
JF - Journal of Risk Research
SN - 1366-9877
IS - 9
ER -