`Surviving the Rigs': Safety and Surveillance on North Sea Oil Installations

Abstract

This article examines the politics of accident reporting on North Sea oil installations. In the context of an all-pervasive safety culture and performance assessment system, offshore workers restricted the reporting of accidents. Other studies suggest that workers often respond to increased monitoring by engaging in defensive practices that manipulate performance information. Accordingly, a central contention of this article is that performance assessment frequently creates employee performances. In turn, the paper highlights the value of linking the work of Goffman to that of Foucault for the critical analysis of culture, performance assessment and safety in contemporary organizations.