Restorative Just Culture: An Exploration of the Enabling Conditions for Successful Implementation

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 Methods: In an exploratory review we analysed published and unpublished cases to discover enabling conditions.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.