Publications Index by ISI

An overview of the Institute for Systems Integrity’s published work, highlighting foundational papers and thematic groupings.

Publications Index by ISI
This section brings together our published work — essays, position pieces, and research-informed commentary — focused on system integrity, governance, and decision-making in complex environments.
Our publications examine how systems behave under pressure: where incentives misalign, where accountability fragments, and where design choices shape real-world outcomes in health, technology, and public institutions.

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Editorial commitments:

Clarity over volume
We publish selectively, prioritising substance, evidence, and coherence over frequency.
Practice-informed insight
Our work is grounded in lived experience — connecting frontline realities with board-level, regulatory, and policy contexts.
Respect for complexity
We resist oversimplification. Many of the challenges facing institutions today cannot be reduced to slogans or single-factor explanations.

Foundations Article #1

Anchor papers that establish the Institute’s core lenses and conceptual frameworks

Decision-Making Under System Stress: Why Good People Make Predictably Weaker Decisions — and What Integrity Requires
Why capable people make weaker decisions under institutional stress — and what integrity requires when systems are strained.
Institute for Systems IntegrityInstitute for Systems Integrity

Latest Publication:

The Systems Integrity Toolkit — Phase I
Why most integrity failures are not visible in time — and how systems allow harm to accumulate before anyone intervenes

Foundation Toolkit #1

This paper introduces the Systems Integrity Toolkit — Phase I, a governance architecture that consolidates ISI’s foundational research into a practical framework for identifying integrity risk before outcomes harden, showing how system stress, decision degradation, governance mediation, and failure dynamics interact long before harm becomes visible.

Systems Integrity Toolkit – Phase 1 | Institute for Systems Integrity
The Systems Integrity Toolkit – Phase I introduces a governance architecture for understanding how integrity fails under system stress and how organisations can intervene before harm occurs.
Institute for Systems IntegrityInstitute for Systems Integrity

Most systems don’t fail because they can’t see the problem.
They fail because they can’t change the things they’ve learned to protect.

As a companion to the Systems Integrity Toolkit — Phase I, this paper examines why integrity risks persist even after they become visible. It explores systemic refusal — the quiet protection of certain variables from change — and shows how governance under pressure can stabilise harm rather than correct it. Together, the Toolkit and this analysis describe a familiar condition in complex organisations: clarity without permission to change.

What Systems Refuse to Change | Institute for Systems Integrity | ISI
This paper examines why systems resist change under pressure and how structurally protected variables shape governance behaviour and outcomes.
Institute for Systems IntegrityInstitute for Systems Integrity

The Failure Taxonomy: How Harm Emerges Without Malice - Why most disasters are not caused by bad people — but by predictable system drift

Foundation Article #4

This paper introduces the Failure Taxonomy — a structural model showing how harm accumulates in complex systems through drift, signal loss, and accountability inversion, without anyone intending it.

The Failure Taxonomy | Institute for Systems Integrity | ISI
This paper introduces the Failure Taxonomy — a structural model showing how harm accumulates in complex systems through drift, signal loss, and accountability inversion, without anyone intending it.
Institute for Systems IntegrityInstitute for Systems Integrity

The ISI Pause Principle explains why governance fails when reaction replaces reflection. Under pressure, systems that remove space between signal and response degrade judgment, suppress warning signs, and invert accountability. Pause is not a leadership trait — it is a governance control condition.

The Pause Principle: Governance Failure Under Pressure | ISI
A systems analysis of how urgency compresses judgment, suppresses signals, and accelerates governance failure — and why pause must be designed as a control condition.
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Integrity is a System Property. Why outcomes reflect design, not intent

Foundation Article # 3

Integrity is often treated as a personal trait. This paper shows why it is better understood as a system property — shaped by how authority, accountability, and information are aligned under stress, and why outcomes reflect design rather than intent.

Integrity Is a System Property | Institute for Systems Integrity| ISI
Integrity is often treated as a personal trait. This paper shows why it is better understood as a system property — shaped by how authority, accountability, and information are aligned under stress, and why outcomes reflect design rather than intent.
Institute for Systems IntegrityInstitute for Systems Integrity

When the Constitution Becomes a Weapon
How governance drift turns compliance into a liability under system stress

This paper examines how constitutions, delegations, and oversight structures can remain legally intact while drifting out of alignment with real decision-making, allowing compliance to persist even as governance control erodes.

When the Constitution Becomes a Weapon | Institute for Systems Integrity
Governance failure rarely begins with misconduct. It begins when constitutions, delegations, decisions, and oversight drift out of alignment under pressure. This paper explains how compliance can persist even as integrity quietly erodes.
Institute for Systems IntegrityInstitute for Systems Integrity

Why Oversight Fails Under Pressure

How system stress distorts visibility, weakens governance, and produces predictable outcomes

Foundation Article # 3

Governance mechanisms designed for stable conditions often lose sensitivity under sustained stress.
Signals distort. Drift normalises. Oversight becomes selectively blind.

This paper examines why failures emerge quietly — and why outcomes are best understood as properties of system design, not individual intent.

Why Oversight Fails Under Pressure | Institute for Systems Integrity
Governance systems are designed for stability. Under sustained stress, visibility distorts, oversight becomes selectively blind, drift normalises, and outcomes become predictable.
Institute for Systems IntegrityInstitute for Systems Integrity


When Resilience Appears, Governance Has Already Failed. Why frontline heroics are a warning signal — not a success story

A companion paper to Why Oversight Fails Under Pressure examining how human resilience conceals system failure.

When Resilience Appears, Governance Has Already Failed | ISI
When frontline teams keep systems functioning through heroics and sacrifice, governance has already failed. This ISI paper explains how resilience hides systemic risk.
Institute for Systems IntegrityInstitute for Systems Integrity

Themes

Foundation Papers

Link:

Browse by theme

In addition to our foundational work, this section includes

Essays and perspective pieces
Governance and leadership reflections
Policy-relevant analysis
Research-informed commentary
Invited contributions from practitioners and scholars

Current publications appear below and will be updated as new work is released.

The Failure Taxonomy | Institute for Systems Integrity | ISI
This paper introduces the Failure Taxonomy — a structural model showing how harm accumulates in complex systems through drift, signal loss, and accountability inversion, without anyone intending it.
Institute for Systems IntegrityInstitute for Systems Integrity