Are organisations too complex to be integrated in technical risk assessment and current safety auditing?

With an experience in technical risk assessment, safety auditing and accident investigation, the author discusses the difficulty of introducing the complex nature of organisations into integrated methodologies (implying a link between technical installations and organisations), and discusses the perspective of introducing it into current safety auditing practices. The research strategy of this work is therefore an interdisciplinary one, using insights from safety engineering, safety auditing practices and human and social sciences. This kind of research implies an exploration and understanding of the rationales in these different domains. It is aimed at creating, as far as possible, articulation between them for practical purposes. The nature of this paper is therefore in some parts theoretical and conceptual, but intends to frame some of the issues for improving auditing techniques and integrated methodologies. Current empirical researches are being carried out to create the methodologies required for supporting auditing improvements.