Abstract:

a b s t r a c t
Background: The influence of sociocultural factors on human reliability within an open sociotechnical
systems is highlighted. The design of such systems is enhanced by experience feedback.
Methods: The study was focused on a survey related to the observation of working cases, and by processing
of incident/accident statistics and semistructured interviews in the qualitative part. In order to
consolidate the study approach, we considered a schedule for the purpose of standard statistical measurements.
We tried to be unbiased by supporting an exhaustive list of all worker categories including
age, sex, educational level, prescribed task, accountability level, etc. The survey was reinforced by a
schedule distributed to 300 workers belonging to two oil companies. This schedule comprises 30 items
related to six main factors that influence human reliability.
Results: Qualitative observations and schedule data processing had shown that the sociocultural factors
can negatively and positively influence operator behaviors.
Conclusion: The explored sociocultural factors influence the human reliability both in qualitative and
quantitative manners. The proposed model shows how reliability can be enhanced by some measures
such as experience feedback based on, for example, safety improvements, training, and information.
With that is added the continuous systems improvements to improve sociocultural reality and to reduce
negative behaviors.
Copyright 2016, Occupational Safety and Health Research Institute. Published by Elsevier. This is an
open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Publisher's Version