Investigating collective mindfulness in mining: A prospective study in high-reliability organizations

Mining is an important contributor to the social and economic fabric of our society. However, it continues to be regarded as one of the most dangerous industries. Compared to manufacturing, mining is more complex, which can pose additional challenges for mining and safety managers in terms of achieving sustainable safety outcomes. More advanced approaches are required. This paper first discusses the state of mining safety in Australia, followed by an examination of some of the complexities that characterizes the industry. It then introduces High-reliability organizations and Collective mindfulness as an advanced organizational safety management strategy that can be used to achieve sustainable safety improvement. A pragmatist research framework and two organizational theories follow this, which can be used to inform further research in these fields. The paper concludes with a research proposition which can be used to empirically investigate these concepts in mining organizations. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020