A contingency model of decision-making involving risk of accidental loss

Decision-making involving risk of accidental loss occurs in a variety of settings. The constraints of the decision settings have a strong impact on decision-making. Different decision settings may thus call for different approaches to decision support. The purpose of this paper is to propose a contingency model of decision-making involving risk of accidental loss. Based on two dimensions, (a) proximity to hazard and (b) level of authority, I identify five types of decision settings: (1) operations, (2) business management, (3) administrative and technical support functions, (4) political arenas, and (5) crisis handling. Each setting is characterised in terms of dominant constraints, dominant decision criteria, and representative decision modes.Decision-making is constrained and influenced by previous decisions, and decisions may interact in the way they influence the risk of accidental loss. The following set of concepts may help us identify ways in which safety may be affected by interactions between decisions: (1) distributed decision-making and local optimization, (2) meta-decisions, (3) absorption of uncertainty, and (4) normalization of deviance.Advice for improving decision-making can be derived from the proposed model by identifying possible problems related to each type of decision setting and each pattern of interaction between decisions. The possible problems may be used as a basis for identifying relevant functions of decision aids and to propose specific decision aids. A similar analysis may be performed with regard to the ways in which decisions may interact in their impact on safety.