Circumstances in a nuclear power plant. Organization of risk and institutionalization of safety

Risk societies are made of risk organisations. This dissertation is an ethnographic study of a risk organisation, of a nuclear power plant. Risk organizations have larger demands on their organization than traditional companies have. Risk societies, to come or already present, have new political agendas. Within a risk society the major task is to reduce and distribute the negative side effects of industrial production, not to increase and distribute well-fare in society, as it has been in an industrial society. This is a study of a risk organisation claimed to produce these negative side effects. The title of this thesis relates to specific occasions in the organisation. The branch concept, circumstances, defines 'situations beyond normal performance', which are to be reported to the nuclear authorities. These circumstances are rarely endangering man or material, but given the nature of nuclear power production, they have a potential to escalate to something larger. This dissertation focuses on how the organisation deals with these issues and reproduces safety as something taken-for-granted. The material is gathered using participant observation of different functions in the plant. The work is based on narration of situations, meetings, interviews, and small talk etc, in every-day-interaction. The dissertation describes how business-as-usual produce safety. It is a description of how values, norms, attitudes, ideas, knowledge are produced and reproduced. These issues are discussed mainly in an institutional theory perspective. What has become apparent is that functions governed by routines and instructions tend to be more flexible and reflecting than those dealing with new tasks, such as problem solving projects. Thus, these new projects tend to reproduce earlier established procedures. Through the narration of the various functions of the plant joined with theoretical discussions, different themes have been found describing how the organisation deals with difficulties and how it reproduces its normal practice. The themes are gathered under 'safety is a fine art'. Legitimization of the organisation was related to the plant's capacity to present an articulated rationality, while safety was in large produced by tacit knowledge