The research within this strand was initiated as part of a funded Energy Institute PhD project which focused on exploring normalisation of deviance within the energy industry. This was carried out by Dr Nejc Sedlar under the supervision of Dr Amy Irwin. Moving forward we hope to expand this topic of research into other contexts including agriculture, forestry and healthcare.

Normalisation of deviance within the Energy Industry

The Energy Industry encompasses multiple elements including oil and gas, wind farms, nuclear and biomass energy. The industry is considered high-risk, both in terms of worker safety and the capacity for environmental disaster. The industry has worked hard to develop a solid framework of process safety management (PSM) which aims to reduce the threat of catastrophic incidents and mitigate the consequences of any adverse incidents that do occur. A key aspect of developing and maintaining this framework is understanding the psychological element behind operator compliance with operational procedures. Normalisation of deviance is a phenomenon that has been widely reported across various industrial sectors as a significant concern. This is described as the gradual acceptance of ever-increasing levels of deviance from established procedures due to a perceived absence of negative associated consequence. Through this process, what was once considered ‘deviant’ gradually become integrated into normal operations, perpetuating the perception that a certain level of deviance is expected and therefore acceptable (normalisation of deviance). Despite the potential importance of understanding these aspects of human behaviour, there is still a lack of comprehensive research on these, particularly regarding how normalisation of deviance develops within the context of the Energy Industry.

The PhD project explored the phenomenon of normalisation of deviance within the context of the energy industry across four studies:

• Systematic review of the literature on normalisation of deviance within high-risk industry, which produced a new conceptual framework, encompassing risk normalisation and a number of organisational factors that contribute to the phenomenon.
• Analysis of real-world incident investigation reports to validate the identified organisational factors and develop a dedicated factor framework encompassing the factors implicated in the development of normalisation of deviance.
• An interview study to further develop the factor framework from the perspective of frontline workers
• An experimental study looking at the gradual escalation of deviant behaviours in the presence of perceived time pressure.