Abstract:
Objective: What is the influence of general management trends and safety research on managing safety?
Method: A literature study which is limited to original English and Dutch books, documents, and articles in relevant scientific journals, for the period 1988–2010.
Results and conclusions: Safety science does not yet have a unifying theory, which betrays its young age as a scientific discipline. In the period concerned, well-known theories, models and metaphors are established or re-issued, including the High Reliability Theory, the Man-Made Disasters and the corresponding Disaster Incubation Theory, and the Normal Accident Theory.
