Event Cross-Simulation: A Tool for Structuring Debates on Work, Enhancing Collective Learning and Improving Safety Management

Abstract

In recent years, various studies have shown the importance of instituting Work Debate Spaces (WDS) within companies to improve safety management, team performance and team members’ health within organizations [12, 16]. For years, ergonomists have been using simulation in various projects as a method for eliciting workers’ actual activity in the discussions [19]. The aim of the paper is to show how a cross-simulation method implemented in WDS can contribute to foster collective learning and improve professional practices and procedures in a high risk organization. This paper will present in a first part the context and the theoretical framework of the action research and the cross-simulation’ methodological device built by the researchers. In a second part, it will develop the results of an experiment carried out by using the cross-simulation device in WDS in a road-tunnel operating company. We will conclude presenting the conditions and limits for both the cross-simulation method and WDS to be effective.