How Outsourcing Impacts Safety Processes: The Case Of Nuclear Waste Storage

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

Abstract

Since the 1980s, organizations are not anymore seen as purely technical but as sociotechnical systems comprised of humans and technologies, which interact and cooperate under formal procedures and internal norms. The speed of life has also deeply changed the way people conceive and run their organizations: increasing technological innovations, intensification of information flux, multiplication of tasks and professions have given rise to complex sociotechnical systems that have become harder to manage with more and more components to coordinate. To face this complexity, many companies now employ the services of subcontractors, in order to reduce their internal costs and be more responsive to a rapidly changing environment. As a consequence, the development of outsourcing practices makes it more difficult for companies to ensure that the safety rules and procedures they have established are carefully followed by the subcontractors’ employees. In France, for instance, the nuclear safety authorities cannot directly control the work of the external providers and temporary workers who are employed by the nuclear operators. Following this example, we propose to study the case of a French nuclear facility in charge of the storage of short-lived, low and intermediate level nuclear waste, where a large part of the storage activities is outsourced, while the design activities remain the core business of the managing company. Observing how the theoretical safety principles are first defined by the managing company according to its organizational culture, and then implemented and adapted by subcontracted employees within different professional groups, we will try to determine how the outsourcing can impact the employees' safety practices in their daily work.

Author

• Anne Russel, IMT Atlantique