Developing Leaders for Decision Making Under Stress: Wildland Firefighters in the South Canyon Fire and Its Aftermath

Useem, Michael; Cook, James R.; Sutton, Larry D.

doi:10.5465/amle.2005.19086788

Cited by 71 publications

(75 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The rational perspective of 'thinking first' works best when "the issue is clear, the data is reliable, the context is structured, thoughts can be pinned down, and discipline can be applied" (Mintzberg and Westley, 2001, p. 91). Decisionmaking is more effective in structured contexts when decision-makers rely on analysis of relevant information when generating, evaluating and selecting among alternatives (Dean and Sharfman, 1996;Fredrickson, 1984; Nutt, 2008), whereas intuition becomes important in unstructured task situations and high-stress or fast-paced environments (Dane and Pratt, 2007;Eisenhardt, 1989a;Mintzberg and Westley, 2001;Useem, Cook and Sutton, 2005).Intuition is based on sensing and feeling grounded in a decision-maker's expertise, experience and perceptions (Miller and Ireland, 2005;Mintzberg and Westley, 2001; SadlerSmith and Shefy, 2004).The emerging literature on evidence-based management is an extension of the rational perspective on decision-making (Baba and HakemZadeh, 2012). As an approach to decision making informed by the best available evidence, EBM encourages management practitioners to consider how different sources of evidence can be incorporated into decision processes (Pfeffer and Sutton, 2006;Rousseau and McCarthy, 2007).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Evidence‐based Management in Practice: Opening up the Decision Process, Decision‐maker and Context

Wright

Zammuto

Liesch

et al. 2015

British J of Management

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Evidence-Based Management (EBM) has been subject to a number of persuasive critiques in recent years. Concerns have been raised that: EBM over-privileges rationality as a basis for decision-making; 'scientific' evidence is insufficient and incomplete as a basis for management practice; understanding of how EBM actually plays out in practice is limited; and although ideas were originally taken from evidence-based medicine, individual-situated expertise has been forgotten in the transfer. To address these concerns, we adopted an approach of 'opening up' the decision process, the decision-maker and the context (Langley et al., 1995). Our empirical investigation focuses on an EBM decision process involving an operations management problem in a hospital emergency department in Australia. Based on interview and archival research, we describe how an EBM decision process was enacted by a physician manager. We identify the role of 'fit' between the decision-maker and the organisational context in enabling an evidence-based process and develop insights for EBM theory and practice.Keywords: Evidence-based management, context, healthcare management, qualitative methods April L. Wright, Raymond F. Zammuto, Peter W. Liesch, Stuart Middleton, Paul Hibbert, John Burke and Victoria Brazil (2016) 2 | P a g e Accepted for publication in the British Journal of Management IntroductionOver the past decade, there has been increasing interest in developing an evidence-based approach to management decision-making (Pfeffer and Sutton, 2006;Rousseau, 2012;Rousseau, 2006;Tranfield, Denyer and Smart, 2003). Observing how evidence-based practice has enhanced patient care in medicine (Sackett, Rosenberg, Gray, Haynes and Richardson, 1996), leading management scholars argue that decision processes within organisations can be similarly improved by systematic analysis of 'best available evidence' (Pfeffer and Sutton, 2006;Rousseau, 2006). The Oxford Handbook of Evidence-Based Management describes EBM as the "science-informed practice of management", which fundamentally involves "using scientific knowledge to inform the judgment of managers and the process of decision-making in organizations" (Rousseau, 2012, p. xxiii). Advocates of EBM see its potential to help bridge the research-practice gap in organisations through management educators incorporating EBM in their teaching (Casio, 2007;Erez and Grant, 2014;Pfeffer and Sutton, 2007;Rousseau and McCarthy, 2007;Rynes, Bartenuk and Daft, 2001;Rynes, Giluk and Brown, 2007), contributing to the relevance of business schools (Bennis and O'Toole, 2005;Thomas and Wilson, 2011).Other scholars, however, are more cautious of EBM's applicability to management decision-making in practice and offer four particular critiques. First, EBM privileges science and rationality as the basis for decision-making, even though what 'counts' as legitimate evidence in management studies is contested (Arndt and Bigelow, 2009;Learmonth, 2006;Tourish, 2013). Second, given the divergent nature of the management discipline ...

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence‐based Management in Practice: Opening up the Decision Process, Decision‐maker and Context

Wright

Zammuto

Liesch

et al. 2015

British J of Management

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“…Going beyond an extreme event, we define an extreme context as an environment where one or more extreme events are occurring or are likely to occur that may exceed the organization's capacity to prevent and result in an extensive and intolerable magnitude of physical, psychological, or material consequences to-or in close physical or psycho-social proximity to-organization members. 4 Examples include the Mann Gulch (Weick, 1993) and South Canyon fires (Useem, Cook, & Sutton, 2005), Indian Ocean Tsunami (Athukorala & Resosudarmo, 2005;Rodriquez, Wachtendorf, Kendra, & Trainor, 2006), Bhopal Chemical release (Bowman & Kunreuther, 1988;Shrivastava, 1987;Union Carbide Report, 1985), Three Mile Island meltdown (Hopkins, 2001;Perrow, 1997), Columbia Space Shuttle explosion (Heimann, 1993;Starbuck & Miliken, 1988;Vaughan, 1996), Westray mine disaster (Hynes & Prasad, 1997), Mount Everest climbing incidents (Kayes, 2004;Tempest, Starkey, & Ennew, 2007), hurricane Katrina (Comfort, 2007;Gheytanchi et al, 2007;Kapucu & Van Wart, 2006;Rego & Garau, 2007), Tenerife airplane collision (Weick, 1990), Chernobyl (Hohenemser, Deicher, Ernst, Hofsäss, Lindner, & Recknagel (1986)), numerous military leadership and combat studies (e.g., Cosby et al, 2006;Morath, Ccurnow, Cronin, Leonard, & McGonigle, 2006;Leonard, Polich, Peterson, Sorter, & Moore, 2006;Department of the Army, 1950Scales, 2006;Snook, 2000;Ulmer, Shaler, Bullis, DiClemente, & Jacobs, 2004;Wong, Bliese, & McGurk, 2003) and organizational doctrine such as the U. S. Army (Department of the Army, 2006) and National Wildfire Service (2007) leadership manuals.…”

Section: Defining Extreme Events and Extreme Contextsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A framework for examining leadership in extreme contexts

Hannah

Uhl‐Bien

Avolio

et al. 2009

The Leadership Quarterly

506

531

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a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c tIn this review, we develop a framework to guide future research and to examine the execution of leadership in extreme contexts. We start by defining and distinguishing extreme contexts from crisis and other contexts. A five component typology is developed comprised of magnitude of consequences, form of threat, probability of consequences, location in time and physical or psychological-social proximity. We discuss the unique influences these components have on leadership processes in extreme contexts examining the relevance of organization types such as critical action and high reliability organizations. Further, we present a set of factors that may attenuate or intensify the dimensions comprising an extreme context, thus influencing either a team or organization's ability for adaptive leadership response. Ultimately this framework seeks to develop a richer understanding of extreme contexts to advance the future development of contextualized theories of leadership for extreme contexts.Published by Elsevier Inc.

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“…However, there are no specific studies that have looked at internist performance after management or leadership training in the broadest sense, but non-technical skills are being increasingly introduced into medical curricula and in that of advance life support training or other medically critical situation management exercises. Outside medicine, there are a number of studies that have looked at decision-making, leadership skill development or management decision-making and how these have benefited from specific training programmes [2]. There is no reason to assume that critical decision-making such as that done by internists in environments like emergency or critical care could not be equally subject to controlled and evaluated development programmes.…”

Section: Relevance Of Management Education To Internistsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why management and leadership education for internists?

Martins¹

2010

European Journal of Internal Medicine

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Around the world, there is an increasing need for more efficiency in healthcare alongside cost containment. Internal medicine physicians are in a pivotal position in this regard. In many countries, they act as bridges between ambulatory/continuity of care systems and hospital-based intensive care and sophisticated therapies. Within the medical field, they often bridge gaps between many specialities increasingly required to provide modern medical care. These skills of managing complex environments, being sensitive to health economics and using large amounts of information, are not normally taught or developed in programmes of internal medicine. While some skills are natural and acquired through practice, other skills would benefit from insights from the fields of management. On the other hand, it seems critical to have internists playing a leading role in the future care of aging populations, and they are the most likely to understand the needs of these multi-pathology cases. On a practical level, internists face the daily challenges of engaging and leading as many people as possible to provide the best care; this requires very good leadership, negotiation, team-working and change-management skills, all of which can be vastly enhanced with specific education initiatives that are targeted and customised to physicians' needs. Management education for internists should be "spiral", starting from medical school and expanding to incorporate issues as the physician maturates into new activities and responsibilities. In practical terms, current internists and residents of internal medicine can be brought into contact with such education by a combination of workshops as well as residential and online courses.

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Developing Leaders for Decision Making Under Stress: Wildland Firefighters in the South Canyon Fire and Its Aftermath

Cited by 71 publications

References 20 publications

Evidence‐based Management in Practice: Opening up the Decision Process, Decision‐maker and Context

Evidence‐based Management in Practice: Opening up the Decision Process, Decision‐maker and Context

A framework for examining leadership in extreme contexts

Why management and leadership education for internists?

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