Abstract

Accidents and near-misses frequently happen within high complex human-machine interaction sociotechnical systems. Detailed accident investigation actions usually follow. An accident investigation is a safety-oriented procedure which is conducted by an authorized team to identify root causes and contributory factors that led to an accident or a near-miss. After dedicated evidence collection from an accident site and relevant context, data is usually analyzed, and causal and contributory factors are identified.  A set of recommendations together with any needed corrective actions will be issued to prevent reoccurrence as a main goal, thus enhancing the organizational safety performance, and the safety of a given industry in general.  In current practice, and especially within poor oversight functions settings, these recommendations may not be honored and carried out to their ultimate value such that organizational learning is adequately achieved, and accordingly more accidents will be lining up. This paper focusses on the construction industry which is one of the mostly known unsafe domains within modern complex sociotechnical industries.  The paper investigates challenges that face the construction organizations in United Arab Emirates - as a world leader in construction projects expansion - in implementing previous accidents investigation recommendations, and what obstacles are there that hinder transferring such recommendations into actual changing actions. A multi-methods approach that involved interviews, focus groups, field observations, databases analysis, and quantitative surveys is taken.  The accidents investigation outcomes implementation efficiency – measured in terms of accidents rate reductions and other aspects - in differently sized construction organizations have thus been calculated. It is found that most large construction organizations tend to systematically apply post-accidents recommendations that involve improved training, better physical accidents barriers and safety signs, upgraded equipment, and improved procedures. However, some of these organizations, and a significant number of smaller organizations as well, are less prepared to fully learn from previous failures due to poor safety culture, some shortages in legislations and oversight coverages, as well as lack of financial abilities and internal follow-up audits. Evidence as well showed that these findings are generalizable for the Middle East and North African (MENA) regions due to many similarities and shared cultural, economic, and environmental factors.  Based on these and other findings, various suggestions and improvement plans have been provided for the construction organizations to improve their organizational learning capacities, especially those with weak post-accident follow-up performance.