Safety rules as instruments for organizational control, coordination and knowledge: Implications for rules management

•Links research from organization and safety science on the topic of safety rules.•Four typical challenges with safety rules are discussed.•Four measures of good rules management are discussed as well.•Provides safety researchers with a broader view of the functioning of safety rules.•Presents useful concepts of rules management for practitioners (esp. rule makers).

Recent research in the field of safety science on the limitedness of rules as a measure to achieve safety has coincided with new research in organization science on rules and routines, and their mutual relationship in particular. The present article is an attempt to uncover what the field of safety science can learn from the latter. It outlines three functions of rules in organizations (as a means for organizational control, as coordination mechanism, and as codified organizational knowledge) and applies these to safety rules in high-risk industries. Four common challenges of safety rules, as well as four typical measures of good rules management are illustrated by discussing examples from safety research. These challenges and typical measures of rules management are furthermore examined in terms of the three functions of rules in organizations. The article demonstrates how safety science, by taking a broader perspective, can benefit from organization theory.