Learning from the complexities of fostering a restorative just culture in practice within the Royal Netherlands Air Force

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.