Authority gradients between team workers in the rail environment: a critical research gap

Figures & data

Figure 1. Overview of the primary roles and interactions of frontline workers in passenger rail operations in many Australian settings (adapted from Roth, Naweed, and Multer 2020). *Around the track personnel captures anyone working in and around the track; repair work can also be facilitated by logging jobs to a facilitatory service desk in some contexts.

Table 1. Application of methods and frameworks involving communication-based errors in the rail environment.

Tool/Framework	Study	Date	Design*	How communication errors are understood	Effectiveness of identifying power distribution in teams
HFACS	Madigan, Golightly, & Madders	(2016)	U	Errors are not specifically attributed to failures in communication	Crew Resource Management (CRM) identified as being relevant in aviation and medical domains, but discounted from relevance in this study due to “the more solitary nature of the train driver role” (p. 128)
HFACS	Baysari, McIntosh & Wilson	(2008b)	U	Lack of teamwork or poor communication are errors associated with Personnel Factors	CRM identified as a contributing factor, but no specific detail concerning teamwork
HFACS-Railway Accidents	Zhan, Zheng & Zhao	(2017)	A	Communication failure incorporated into main causal factor for an Unsafe Act, i.e., the failure of a station attendant to communicate train network status prior to their collision.	The primary Precondition for the causal Unsafe Act is identified as Substandard conditions of team, i.e. lack of teamwork. No mention of power distribution within teams
TRACEr Rail	Baysari, Caponecchia, McIntosh, & Wilson	(2009)	A	Communication error categorised at a Performance Factor, i.e. a factor that may prevent an error from occurring.	Acknowledgement that organisational factors feature highly in error causation, but TRACEr Rail was not a comprehensive tool for understanding these factors. No mention of power influences
TRACEr-RAV	Baysari, Caponecchia & McIntosh	(2011)	A	Further categories such as ‘vigilance’ and ‘conflicting information’ added as participants failed to identify a category for errors related to performance factors. No indication as to how communication is categorised	An Australian-specific version of TRACEr-Rail. Three new categories were introduced as performance factors, including ‘errors of other rail personnel’, suggestive of thinking that teamwork factors also impacted error
TRACEr	Gibson, Mills & Hasketh	(2012)	U	Communication error identified as breaches in communication protocols. Communication errors related to a task are attributed to the task.	Focus on the context for the error, for understanding error causation. No identification of team work or power influences
Retrospective TRACEr Lite	Baysari, McIntosh & Wilson	(2008a)	A	Communication error not specifically identified in accident causation for drivers	No teamwork factors identified
CREAM	Phillips & Sagberg	(2014)	U	Study into Signal Passed at Danger (SPAD) causation with focus on driver behaviour without Network Controller contribution. No mention of the lack of communication by the Network Controller as a contributing factor in error	Primary focus on driver behaviours, thus no consideration of teamwork aspects of the Network Control and possible influences
R-PSFs	Kyriakidis, Majumdar, & Ochieng	(2015)	A	Of 479 incident reports analysed, no errors associated with the R-PSF categories of ‘task instructions’, ‘relations within teams’ and ‘communication within organisation’, identified	Key acknowledgement that ‘communication within organisation’ is a difficult contributing factor to identify and is rarely identified in incident reports
Rasch model/COSMO	Cheng & Tsai	(2011)	U	Communication is an aspect of decision skills and a focus of this study into cognitive activities of the Network Controller	No focus on teamwork aspects of Network Controller competence. Findings that Controllers may underestimate difficulties in dealing with incidents to avoid criticism from superiors
Contributing Factors Framework	Klockner	(2012)	A	Communication is categorised within Individual/Team contributing factors	Suggestion that some accident trends are not picked up by conventional tools, but no elaboration on what these might be
Event Analysis of Systemic Teamwork	Walker, Gibson, Stanton, Neville, Baber, Salmon and Green	(2006)	A	Communication defined as the operational aspects of sending, receiving and acknowledging information	Teamwork is the over-arching concept. Establishes that certain roles have the highest levels of socio metric status and centrality in communication exchanges. Framework appears to be capable of identifying power distribution, though it did not in this study
IFCS	Turner, Townsend, Lowe & Gibson	(2017)	A	Study outcome is to focus on training and development to improve safety critical communications	95 incidents attributed to communication failures were assessed, with no mention of power distribution as a contributing factor

* U = unadapted for rail; A = adapted for rail.

Table 2. Application of Hofstede’s power-distance theory based on industry and context.

Author	Date	Industry	Study Context	Related findings
Appelbaum, Mazmanian, & Appelbaum	(2016)	Health	Power-distance and leader inclusiveness	Power relationships should be viewed as equally organisational and individual
Rieck	(2014)	Health	General Practitioner– Pharmacist relationship	Increased awareness of team roles decreases power-distance
Itoh & Andersen	(2008)	Health	Power-distance influence on safety culture	An increase in power-distance corresponds with a decrease in awareness of the importance of communication and safety
Ruuska, Artto, Aaltonen & Lehtonen	(2009)	Nuclear Power	Cultural influences on operational safety	Regulation and standardisation must be considerate of cultural context
Williams	(2016)	Oil Rig	Intercultural communication and safety	A greater understanding of how risk and safety documentation is interpreted and understood by different work groups is needed
Tharaldsen, Mearns & Knudsen	(2010)	Oil Rig	Safety, trust and group related factors	Important to understand how policies and practices are disseminated to frontline staff, as different work groups can have different interpretations, even if they work in the same environment.

Figure 2. Conceptualisation of the authority gradient showing relationship between authority/power and status/value of the core operational multidisciplinary team functions. Note: terminology related to Australian settings; box around specific domains is used to indicate that these are typically co-located; *PO = protection officer role in track worker party.

Table 3. Example pf application of CRM principles in industries other than rail.

Author(s)	Date	Industry	Context	Substantive findings
Gordon, Darbyshire & Baker	(2012)	Healthcare	NTS and patient safety	Supports implementation of NTS education inspired by CRM principles
Flin, Patey, Glavin & Maran	(2010)	Healthcare	Anaesthetists’ NTS and multidisciplinary teams	Comparison made between ongoing CRM training for pilots and the need for ongoing training in NTS in medicine
Cooper, Endacott, & Cant	(2010)	Healthcare	NTS relevant to emergency care	Enhanced patient safety may be achieved through greater focus on teamwork skills
Gordon & O’Connor	(2012)	Healthcare	Hierarchical culture within the health profession	Comparisons drawn between ongoing CRM training requirements for pilots and a need for this training in healthcare
Griffith, Roberts & Wakeham	(2015)	Emergency Services	CRM training effectiveness	Support for recurrent CRM training in the Fire Service to enhance teamwork
Oberlin	(2018)	Emergency and Disaster Management	Improving decision making in high-stress situations	CRM provides a framework for people to make decisions in high stress situations
Marquardt, Robelski & Jenkins	(2011)	Manufacturing	Training systems to improve awareness of potential errors	CRM training suitable for utilisation outside the aviation context as long as it is tailored to the organisational culture

Table 4. Summary of research gaps related to investigation of the power-distance issues in rail.

Research gaps	Research Opportunities	Likely Benefits
There is anecdotal evidence of authority gradients in rail, and some dimensions relevant to authority gradients have been researched, but no empirical research has specifically investigated authority gradients within the rail environment	Conduct comprehensive research using suitable methods within, between and across different operational functions	Improved understanding of the overall impact of the authority gradient in heavy rail and its treatment. This may also apply to all areas (e.g. operations, safety, competence management, leadership, risk management)
Incident investigations conducted by industry in Australian rail have drawn overt reference to authority gradients between front-line workers. A small number are selected to support this review but a better understanding of its prevalence within industry is needed	Conduct systematic search of rail incidents attributed to authority gradients as a contributory factor and examine rail incidents linked to communication error for behavioural markers of authority gradients.	Better understanding of authority gradients in incident investigation literature
Building on the previous research gap, this review has only focused on incident investigations from the Australian industry	Conduct systematic search of rail incidents attributed to authority gradients in countries and rail settings outside Australia	More complete understanding of the international rail industry profile on the issue
While it has been applied to many other industries and sectors, the power distance aspects of Hofstede’s theory on cultural relativity has not been applied to the rail environment	Conduct comprehensive study based on applications of Hofstede’s theory	Greater understanding of team interdependencies and the social factors that serve to enhance or impede communication and safety within the rail context. Potential integration of power-distance theory in mainstream analysis concerning rail accidents and improved understanding of rail human factors more broadly
Building on the previous research gap, Hofstede’s power distance theory suggests that network controllers are at the top of the rail operational hierarchy and track maintenance staff are at the bottom but there is no evidence for this other than the hierarchical design of the rail environment	Conduct specific research that examines power/hierarchy and status/value in rail front line staff	Supporting evidence for application of Hofstede’s power distance theory to rail
There is a lack of clarity on whether the current tools and frameworks which have been applied to explore communication error in rail are capable of identifying an authority gradient	Explore/empirically evaluate current tools/frameworks to determine whether they are able to identify authority gradients in rail	Better understanding of communication error in rail and its application to teamwork
Industries and sectors other than rail address issues of power distance with a range of tools, including NTS frameworks and CRM systems. More insightful descriptions and in-depth comparisons of where this works well, why, and what the similarities and differences are with rail is needed	Conduct comparative review of systems used to manage power distance issues in similar industry contexts	Determining suitable systems for managing issues of power distance in rail
Related to the above point, CRM is widely applied in other contexts to understand and influence power relationships within teams but does not seem to have transferred adequately to rail	Determine relevance and benefits of a complete training (i.e. CRM System) vs skills analysis (i.e. NTSs) frameworks in rail	More complete understanding of the practical utilities of the different approaches in rail

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