Background/Objectives: Restorative responses to staff involved in incidents are becoming recognized as a rigorous and constructive alternative to retributive forms of ‘just culture’. However, actually achieving restoration in mostly retributive working environments can be quite difficult. The conditions for the fair and successful application of restorative practices have not yet been established. In this article, we explore possible commonalities in the conditions for success across multiple cases and industries. Methods: In an exploratory review we analysed published and unpublished cases to discover enabling conditions. Results: We found eight enabling conditions—leadership response, leadership expectations, perspective of leadership, ‘tough on content, soft on relationships’, public and media attention, regulatory or judicial attention to the incident, second victim acknowledgement, and possible full-disclosure setting—whose absence or presence either hampered or fostered a restorative response. Conclusions: The enabling conditions seemed to coagulate around leadership qualities, media and judicial attention resulting in leadership apprehension or unease linked to their political room for maneuver in the wake of an incident, and the engagement of the ‘second victim’. These three categories can possibly form a frame within which the application of restorative justice can have a sustainable effect. Follow-up research is needed to test this hypothesis.

In this study we identify the differences in goal realisation when applying two conflicting paradigms regarding rule perception and management. We gathered more than 30 scenarios where goal conflicts were apparent in a military operational unit. We found that operators repetitively utilized certain routines in executing their tasks in an effort to realize several conflicting goals. These routines were not originally intended nor designed into the rules and not explicitly included in documentation. They were not necessarily at odds with the literal wording and/or the intent of rules and regulations, although we did find examples of this. Our data showed that local ingenuity was created innovatively within the frame of existing rules or kept invisible to those outside the unit. The routines were introduced and passed on informally, and we found no evidence of testing for the introduction of new risks, no migration into the knowledge base of the organisation, and no dissemination as new best practices. An explanation for this phenomenon was found in the fact that the military organisation was applying a top-down, classical, rational approach to rules. In contrast, the routines were generated by adopting a constructivist view of rules as dynamic, local, situated constructions with operators as experts. The results of this study suggest that organisations are more effective in solving goal conflicts and creating transparency on local ingenuity if they adopt a constructivist paradigm instead of, or together with, a classical paradigm.

Although rules support people while executing tasks, they are not the same as work-as-done. It can be impossible to follow the rules and finish the job at the same time. In this study, the objective is to better understand the stakes and interests that lie behind retaining gaps between work-as-prescribed and work-as-done, mapping the benefits and fears of noncompliance. The study was conducted along the vertical hierarchy of an operational flight squadron of the Royal Netherlands Air Force. We applied a qualitative survey research methodology using semi-structured interviews, complemented by an investigation of relevant documents. We found a public and political commitment to compliance made by the Dutch Department of Defence, which reinforces a cycle of issuing promises followed by pressure to keep the promise. This contradicts the found need for adaptation and freedom to use expertise. The official safety narrative seems to convey a hidden message—bad things happen to bad people, reminiscent of a bogeyman. One opportunity to resolve the situation is a doctrine change, changing prescriptive rules to guidelines.

In any organization, a restorative just culture and learning from incidents are key to improving organizational safety. The focus of a restorative just culture is not on determining right or wrong, but on repairing (restoring) and learning from an occurrence, by bringing both culprits and the people affected by the occurrence together to collectively answer the question of what to do next. However, a competitive and hierarchical organizational culture can make such openness difficult. Little can be found in the literature on the complexities of fostering a restorative just culture in a predominantly retributive setting. This article presents a qualitative case study aimed at understanding the complexities of fostering a restorative just culture in practice in a retributive setting. The article describes a safety standdown in the Royal Netherlands Air Force, based on observations, focus groups and semi-structured interviews. The findings reveal a spontaneous restorative response but an actual restorative setting was only partly attained. An inductive, thematic analysis of the data identified four key themes: 1) the need for vulnerability; 2) moral courage of leaders, 3) resolving the tension between learning and punishing, and 4) preventing a hybrid form of (un)just culture (asking people to openly share information, and then punishing them for doing so). The analysis shows that a hierarchy that appreciates and encourages a retributive response complicates the endeavour to create a restorative just culture. Upper management must deal productively with these challenges to foster a restorative just culture.