Inter-organizational Collaboration for Railway Safety in Japan

• In Event: The Impact of Outsourcing and Contracting on Accident Prevention in Complex Sociotechnical Systems (1)

Abstract

This paper is centred around the safety in a railway system in Japan. Shinkansen, the bullet train in Japan has been operated for more than 55 years without a serious system accident. The rolling stocks are designed by collaboration between railway companies and independent railway vehicle manufacturers. This paper describes how railway safety has been achieved by the interaction between relevant organizational actors, material entities and institutional or structural factors. In addition, the paper also focuses on the blind spots of the assemblage since there was a serious incident recently in which a shinkansen with about 1000 passengers on-board kept running for about 740 kilometers with a cracked chassis.
This paper adopts an original analytical method, called MAIS approach, which intends to elucidate social phenomena from the interactions among actors, material entities and institutional/structural factors. MAIS is an acronym formed from the initial letters of the elements of social phenomena, “material entities”, “actors” and “institutional/structural factors”. The MAIS approach pays clear attention to material entities, distinction between actors and material entities, and distinction between material entities and institutional/structural factors in comparison to the structuration theory and actor-network theory.
The contributions of this paper are, firstly, the description of inter-organizational practices in the railway industry in Japan to shape safety; secondly, theoretical and practical implications for the safety studies about complex sociotechnical systems; and thirdly, the proposal of an effective analytical tool of social phenomena: MAIS approach.

Author

• Takuji Hara, Kobe University