A complexity thinking account of the COVID-19 pandemic: Implications for systems-oriented safety management. (February 2021) - Abreu Saurin, Tarcisio
Highlights: The COVID-19 pandemic is framed as a normal accident. The COVID-19 pandemic is analysed from the viewpoint of complexity thinking. The rise, unfolding, and hopeful end of the pandemic are discussed from a complexity lens. Mitigation measures are checked against five guidelines for coping with complexity. Seven research propositions for systems-safety oriented research are presented. Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic poses mankind again facing an ancient challenge, while this time in a scenario of unprecedented interconnectedness among people, businesses, and ecosystems. This distinctive feature of the 21st century is framed in this paper in terms of complexity, which has played a role in the rise, unfolding, and the hopeful end of the crisis. An exploratory analysis of the multifaceted influence of complexity across these three major stages of the pandemic is carried out, shedding light on emerging patterns that help to make sense of the crisis. The analysis of the unfolding crisis and the corresponding mitigation measures is based on five guidelines for coping with complexity developed on a previous study, namely: diversity of perspectives in decision-making, providing slack, giving visibility to processes and outcomes, understanding and monitoring the gap between work-as-imagined and work-as-done, and understanding and monitoring unintended consequences. Sources of data for that analysis encompass recent literature on the pandemic, complexity thinking applied to human factors and safety science, as well as general information on the pandemic publicly available from respected sources. For each of the three major pandemic stages, and for each guideline, a proposition for theory testing in future studies is set out.