Charles Perrow

Charles Bryce Perrow was an American sociologist, born February 9, 1925, and a leading figure in organizational sociology. He spent most of his career as a professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and at Yale University. His best known book, Normal Accidents, examined how the complexity and tight coupling of large technological systems, such as nuclear power plants, make catastrophic failure an inevitable feature of the system rather than merely the result of individual operator error. He was primarily concerned throughout his career with the impact of large organizations on society. He died November 12, 2019.