The appointment of people working full time as advisers or enforcers for the prevention of work accidents and occupational diseases can be traced back in the UK (United Kingdom)to the factory inspectors in the early 19th Century. From the early 20th Century companies started to employ their own occupational safety and health (OSH)staff to undertake preventive tasks and to monitor compliance with legislation and company rules and procedures. Both the inspectorate and the companies faced comparable policy decisions about the role, selection, education and training of these OSH staff, who, by the 1940s, were taking the first steps to becoming a profession in the field of working conditions. This paper presents a historical summary of the developments in the UK which determined the role and requirements for appointment, education, training and work of both these groups of budding professionals (inspectors and company OSH staff). It traces the steps which have characterised this process of professionalisation, summarising them using as framework the criteria for becoming a recognised profession as set out in the introduction to this special issue (Hale et al., this issue).

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This special issue invites to a debate to elaborate on differences and similarities between the perspectives of High Reliability Organisation (HRO) and Resilience Engineering (RE). Such a debate may be conducted along both essentialistic and pragmatic lines, and we suggest that the latter approach is potentially more interesting and fruitful than the first. We use the technique of feeding off controversies and expand on what might at first look merely like a polemic disagreement, a question of wording, namely the definition of safety as a dynamic non-event. This elaboration is used as a projector onto a canvas where a number of distinguishing themes between HRO and RE are outlined more clearly; symmetry, normativity, addressee and origin are keywords that show how HRO and RE are different, and why they cannot simply be combined into one grand theory of everything. Other concrete results from these investigations include a review of applications of HRO and RE in health research, an elaboration of the distinction between Safety I and Safety II, and a nuancing of how we may understand and study successful operations. We suggest a research agenda that combines the scopes and methods of HRO and RE, possibly in combination with other theoretical approaches. We also call for a more lively discussion on central themes of HRO and RE, not for fighting over definitions and proving who is right, but with the aim of producing knowledge that makes a difference regardless of theoretical stance.

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There have long been discussions on the professionality of occupational health and safety (OHS) and concerns about standards of practice, with the recognition of OHS as a profession further inhibited by lack of clarity on role and variations in terminology and principles underpinning practice. In 2013, the International Network of Safety and Health Practitioner Organisations (INSHPO) recognized the need for a global approach to reconceptualise OHS professionals as influential leaders who can work to integrate OHS within business processes. The Occupational Health and Safety Professional Capability Framework: A Global Framework for Practice was subsequently developed by this international body representing OHS professional associations across 10 countries with the outcome endorsed by 53 organisations at a ceremonial signing of the Singapore Accord. This paper reviews the development of the framework and the emergence of two clear roles; the OHS Professional and OHS Practitioner. It explores the process for clarifying the roles and required knowledge and skills together with the challenges experienced along the way. The paper recognises that the framework should not be a static document and so concludes by considering the work still to be done.

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A large portion of road traffic crashes occur at intersections for the reason that drivers lack necessary visual information. This research examined the effects of an audio-visual display that provides real-time sonification and visualization of the speed and direction of another car approaching the crossroads on an intersecting road. The location of red blinking lights (left vs. right on the speedometer) and the lateral input direction of beeps (left vs. right ear in headphones) corresponded to the direction from where the other car approached, and the blink and beep rates were a function of the approaching car's speed. Two driving simulators were linked so that the participant and the experimenter drove in the same virtual world. Participants (N = 25) completed four sessions (two with the audio-visual display on, two with the audio-visual display off), each session consisting of 22 intersections at which the experimenter approached from the left or right and either maintained speed or slowed down. Compared to driving with the display off, the audio-visual display resulted in enhanced traffic efficiency (i.e., greater mean speed, less coasting) while not compromising safety (i.e., the time gap between the two vehicles was equivalent). A post-experiment questionnaire showed that the beeps were regarded as more useful than the lights. It is argued that the audio-visual display is a promising means of supporting drivers until fully automated driving is technically feasible.@en

The paper reviews the literature from 1986 on the management of those safety rules and procedures which relate to the workplace level in organisations. It contrasts two different paradigms of how rules and their development and use are perceived and managed. The first is a top-down classical, rational approach in which rules are seen as static, comprehensive limits of freedom of choice, imposed on operators at the sharp end and violations are seen as negative behaviour to be suppressed. The second is a bottom-up constructivist view of rules as dynamic, local, situated constructions of operators as experts, where competence is seen to a great extent as the ability to adapt rules to the diversity of reality. The paper explores the research underlying and illustrating these two paradigms, drawn from psychology, sociology and ethnography, organisational studies and behavioural economics. In a separate paper following on from this review (Hale and Borys, this issue) the authors propose a framework of rule management which attempts to draw the lessons from both paradigms. It places the monitoring and adaptation of rules central to its management process.@en

the companion paper to this paper (Hale and Borys, this issue) reviews the literature from 1986 on the management of those safety rules and procedures which relate to the workplace level in organisations. It contrasts two different paradigms of how work rules and their development and use are perceived and managed. The first is a top-down classical, rational approach in which rules are seen as static, comprehensive limits of freedom of choice, imposed on operators at the sharp end and violations are seen as negative behaviour to be suppressed. The second is a bottom-up constructivist view of rules as dynamic, local, situated constructions of operators as experts, where competence is seen to a great extent as the ability to adapt rules to the diversity of reality. That paper explores the research underlying and illustrating these two paradigms. In this second paper we draw on that literature study to propose a framework of rule management which attempts to draw the lessons from both paradigms. It places the monitoring and adaptation of rules central to its management process and emphasises the need for participation of the intended rule followers in the processes of rule-making, but more importantly in keeping those rules alive and up to date in a process of regular and explicit dialogue with first-line supervision, and through them with the technical, safety and legal experts on the system functioning. The framework is proposed for testing in the field as a benchmark for good practice.@en