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What counts as a reasonable extent? - a systems approach for understanding fire safety in Sweden

Larsson, Miranda ; Grunnesjö, Erik and Bergström, Johan LU (2012) In Journal of Risk Research 15(5). p.517-532
Abstract
Swedish legislation requires that any owner or user of a building maintain a reasonable level of fire protection measures to ensure the safety of all people located in the building. If a building, in the wake of a fire, in court is determined not to have had a reasonable fire protection, the blame will likewise be assigned to the building owner or user. Using the perspective of risk governance, this study aims at analysing how regulation and stakeholders interact to maintain a specific level of fire protection in hotels. The focus is on identifying problems and frictions that have emerged from the complex relationships, and differences of interests, between the different stakeholders. Based on a stakeholder analysis, 11 respondents were... (More)
Swedish legislation requires that any owner or user of a building maintain a reasonable level of fire protection measures to ensure the safety of all people located in the building. If a building, in the wake of a fire, in court is determined not to have had a reasonable fire protection, the blame will likewise be assigned to the building owner or user. Using the perspective of risk governance, this study aims at analysing how regulation and stakeholders interact to maintain a specific level of fire protection in hotels. The focus is on identifying problems and frictions that have emerged from the complex relationships, and differences of interests, between the different stakeholders. Based on a stakeholder analysis, 11 respondents were selected for an interview study. The main problems identified in the analysis are that there are ambiguities for the individual hotel owner to know whether her or his fire protection measures are reasonable according to the law, that the system has emerged without clear political goals, problems related to the process of local supervision, that the ambiguous situation gives rise to opportunities of other stakeholders to claim the definition of what counts as a reasonable extent, and the ethical problems associated with convicting a single individual for failure in a complex multi-actor system. (Less)
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author
; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
fire safety, stakeholders, risk governance, complexity, blame
in
Journal of Risk Research
volume
15
issue
5
pages
517 - 532
publisher
Routledge
external identifiers
  • wos:000302097200005
  • scopus:84858170467
ISSN
1366-9877
DOI
10.1080/13669877.2011.643478
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
0a791f55-df9d-4881-97ab-14f2ba64e52f (old id 2273120)
alternative location
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13669877.2011.643478
date added to LUP
2016-04-01 10:15:39
date last changed
2022-03-27 06:36:34
@article{0a791f55-df9d-4881-97ab-14f2ba64e52f,
  abstract     = {{Swedish legislation requires that any owner or user of a building maintain a reasonable level of fire protection measures to ensure the safety of all people located in the building. If a building, in the wake of a fire, in court is determined not to have had a reasonable fire protection, the blame will likewise be assigned to the building owner or user. Using the perspective of risk governance, this study aims at analysing how regulation and stakeholders interact to maintain a specific level of fire protection in hotels. The focus is on identifying problems and frictions that have emerged from the complex relationships, and differences of interests, between the different stakeholders. Based on a stakeholder analysis, 11 respondents were selected for an interview study. The main problems identified in the analysis are that there are ambiguities for the individual hotel owner to know whether her or his fire protection measures are reasonable according to the law, that the system has emerged without clear political goals, problems related to the process of local supervision, that the ambiguous situation gives rise to opportunities of other stakeholders to claim the definition of what counts as a reasonable extent, and the ethical problems associated with convicting a single individual for failure in a complex multi-actor system.}},
  author       = {{Larsson, Miranda and Grunnesjö, Erik and Bergström, Johan}},
  issn         = {{1366-9877}},
  keywords     = {{fire safety; stakeholders; risk governance; complexity; blame}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{5}},
  pages        = {{517--532}},
  publisher    = {{Routledge}},
  series       = {{Journal of Risk Research}},
  title        = {{What counts as a reasonable extent? - a systems approach for understanding fire safety in Sweden}},
  url          = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/1693547/3014859.pdf}},
  doi          = {{10.1080/13669877.2011.643478}},
  volume       = {{15}},
  year         = {{2012}},
}