Person

James Reason

Safety scientist whose work on human error, organizational accidents, and resilient systems shaped modern safety thinking.

Why this matters

Reason reframes failure as systemic—essential for coupling, accountability, and learning without blame theater.

Works

book

Human Error

Reason, James. *Human Error*. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

book

Managing the Risks of Organizational Accidents

Reason, James. *Managing the Risks of Organizational Accidents*. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1997.

book

The Human Contribution: Unsafe Acts, Accidents and Heroic Recoveries

Reason, James. *The Human Contribution: Unsafe Acts, Accidents and Heroic Recoveries*. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2008.

Related books

Book

The Discipline of Uncertainty

Judgment, Restraint, and Decision Quality Under Incomplete Information

Field notes on judgment, restraint, and decision quality when information is incomplete.

Book

Trust Beyond Similarity

How Trust Remains Possible Across Difference

How people learn to trust perspectives they do not share—and why trust becomes more valuable when perspectives differ.

Book

When Others Look to You

Forming, Renewing, Eroding, Repeating

A companion edition that extends the leadership cycle across formation, renewal, erosion, and repetition with sharper operational patterns.

Book

When Trust Stops Tracking Reality

Why Good Intentions Sometimes Become Harmful

How trust drifts from evidence when good intentions stop learning from feedback—through the fictional arc of Calder Family Health and real institutional patterns.