As previously noted, adequate resources are essential to support complex systems in the HRO [8,17,22,24]. For organisations with sufficient resources, expectations will be high. This may be especially true of safety [40,13]. Con- versely, cutting back resources and emphasising efficiency is detrimental to reliability [8,17]. Therefore, to maintain system equilibrium a reduction in resources must be accom- panied by a reduction in performance related expectations, whilst an increase in resources is usually accompanied by an increase in expectations. The bidirectional nature of this relationship is represented in the model as dotted lines whilst the variable relative strength (or weakness) of these components is represented as triangles (Fig. 2).

QUESTION: In the relationship between Resources and Expectations, what would be a predictable course of action if the organization had its budget cut by 50%? How do you believe managers would respond in order to keep the model in balance?

Fig. 1. Conceptual model for operational reliability