Skip to Content
Minding the Machines: Preventing Technological Disasters
book

Minding the Machines: Preventing Technological Disasters

by William M. Evan, Mark Manion
April 2002
Intermediate to advanced
512 pages
13h 26m
English
Pearson
Content preview from Minding the Machines: Preventing Technological Disasters

Chapter 4. Theories of Technological Disasters

 

“Nothing is so practical as a sound theory”

 
 --Kurt Lewin

The pivotal concept of technological disaster seems to be self-evident. In reality, however, its definition is anything but self-evident. Four different theories—systems theory, normal accident theory, high reliability theory, and sociotechnical systems theory—are presented. Our task in this chapter is to clarify the meaning of technological disaster by analyzing these four theories.

A Systems Approach to Technological Disasters

A closed-systems analysis treats any technological system as independent of external factors and tends to focus exclusively on internal structural properties and internal relations; analysis of parts of the system is ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

Geekonomics: The Real Cost of Insecure Software

Geekonomics: The Real Cost of Insecure Software

David Rice

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 0130656461Purchase book