# The Unintended Consequences of No Blame Ideology for Incident Investigation in the US Construction Industry

*Sherratt · Safety & Error, Voice & Silence · Safety Science · 2023 · Open access*

A discourse analysis of 34 simulated incident investigation interviews with construction safety experts, which identified an unexpected phenomenon the authors term 'New Blame'. Dogmatic no-blame ideology, rather than eliminating blame, redirects it: interviewers become reluctant to explore the actions and decisions of the people involved and instead focus attention on inanimate objects, paperwork, and organizational procedures — things that can be blamed without interpersonal consequence. At its extreme, New Blame returns incident investigation to something resembling Acts of God: diffuse, faceless systemic factors that no-one is responsible for and nothing can be learned from. The study emerged as an accidental finding within a larger project on cognitive bias in investigative interviews. The practical implication: no-blame, if implemented dogmatically and in isolation from restorative justice frameworks, can be as much a barrier to learning as retributive blame — just a different kind of barrier.

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- **View the source paper:** https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2023.106247
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