This article contributes to the debate on organizational learning from crisis by shedding light on the phenomenon of crises as learning triggers. To unveil theoretical patterns of how organizational crisis-induced learning may appear and develop, I suggest a conceptual framework based on concept categories and answers to four fundamental questions: what lessons are learned (single-or double-loop)?; what is the focus of the lessons (prevention or response)?; when are lessons learned (intra-or intercrisis)?; is learning blocked from implementation or carried out (distilled or implemented)? The framework's applicability is explored in a study of how a Swedish utility and the city of Stockholm responded to two large-scale blackouts in Stockholm. The final sections suggest four propositions for further research.
This article presents a typology of temporal organizational responses to crises in public perception aimed at examining the ability of organizations to restructure in order to cope with acute crisis management challenges. The typology is based on organizations ' capacities to launch crisis management strategies and adapt their managerial and operational levels to deal with crises. According to the typology, the Fully Adapting Organization manages to adapt both its strategy and its managerial and operational levels to deal with the crisis. The Semi-Adapting Organization changes its strategy but lacks the capacity to change managerial and operational levels according to the new strategy. The Non-Adapting Organization does not grasp the importance of strategy change in the first place. Based on three inductive case studies the study concludes that organizational culture plays an important role in this process where the Semi and the Non-Adapting organizations were dominated by strong expert cultures that proved to be less inclined to change. In contrast, the Fully Adapting Organization had deliberately fostered an organizational culture in which flexibility was a cornerstone.
Projection of strategic narratives to gain competitive advantages is a central feature in the global competition for status and power. This article presents a comparative narrative analysis of how the Russian state sponsored news platform Sputnik narrates Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden 2014-2019. The objectives are to uncover what negative work strategic narratives can perform and to decipher how adverse narratives are constructed. The findings suggest that Sputnik uses a mix of standard strategies and tailor-made narratives, working to destruct, direct and suppress the Nordics. The analysis exposed distinct differences as Sputnik narrated Sweden and Denmark more negatively than Norway and Finland. The narratives can serve to divide and weaken the Nordics and the EU, and undermine international reputations of each state. The strategy of division through narratives is particularly problematic as polarization challenges Western democracies and the EU. The article furthers narrative research by testing a recently crafted analytical framework and by presenting findings that indicate a need for a broadened research agenda. Whereas previous research has primarily centred on how malign information influence can harm democracy, our results indicate that narratives can cause a broader variety of harms.
Lately, scholars have been engaging in studies on the crossroads between collaborative public management and crisis management, but our knowledge on how organizations work together with interorganizational goals in times of crisis or in relation to the threat that crises pose, is still limited. This study aims to illuminate how interagency horizontal collaboration plays out in practice. An interview study with twenty‐three Swedish duty officers in three organizations with critical tasks in the institutional crisis management system is carried out to unearth impediments to interagency collaboration that emerge when organizations from different policy subsystems engage in crisis collaboration. Empirically, the study contributes with new knowledge on how a crucial function in crisis management carries out work and deals with challenges. Theoretically, it contributes to the literature on crisis management collaboration by shedding light on processes of horizontal collaboration in the area of crisis management.
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