Experts under the microscope: the Wivenhoe Dam case

Sarah Maslen () and Jan Hayes
Additional contact information
Sarah Maslen: The Australian National University
Jan Hayes: The Australian National University

Environment Systems and Decisions, 2014, vol. 34, issue 2, 183-193

Abstract: Abstract Prosecution of experts in the wake of disasters has emerged as common in the context of increasing social intolerance of risk. This paper examines expert blame using as a case study the decisions of engineers who operated Wivenhoe Dam during the Queensland floods in January 2011 and the criticisms of those decisions by the subsequent Commission of Inquiry. Our analysis draws on the literature on organisational safety, organisational learning and expertise to examine the relevance of the criteria against which the engineers were judged, the relevant competence of those who made this assessment and the broader implications of such exercises. Our analysis shows that lay judgements of expert practice can be misleading, as evidenced by the Commission of Inquiry’s misguided focus on procedural adherence. We argue that such inquiries—where the focus is on assigning blame—detract from opportunities to learn from incidents and can negatively impact on professional practices. If the aim is to make future disasters less likely, then inquiries that take this approach may be failing in this endeavour, or at least not maximising their contribution.

Keywords: Safety; Sociology; Expertise; Blame; Lessons; Professional practice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10669-014-9492-7 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:envsyd:v:34:y:2014:i:2:d:10.1007_s10669-014-9492-7

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.springer.com/journal/10669

DOI: 10.1007/s10669-014-9492-7

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Environment Systems and Decisions from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().