Organizational Learning Under Fire

Carley, Kathleen M.; Harrald, John R.

doi:10.1177/0002764297040003007

Cited by 99 publications

(82 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Organisations learn from experience (Hage, 1966;Friedmann, 1976;Korten, 1987b;Levitt and March, 1988;Carley and Harrald, 1997). Ideally, learning would be used for furthering the goals of the organisation, although that is not guaranteed.…”

Section: Organisational Learningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Planning of Health Non-Governmental Organizations in Palestine under the Conditions of Instability

Abuiyada¹,

Eteiwi²

2016

JSSW

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Section: Organisational Learningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Planning of Health Non-Governmental Organizations in Palestine under the Conditions of Instability

Abuiyada¹,

Eteiwi²

2016

JSSW

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“…This leaves the question of whether theories of organizations can be applicable to nonconventional events or crisis situations largely assumed and certainly not fully explored (Marcus and Nichols 1999;Carley and Harrald 1997). Crises induced by accidents are especially worthy of attention, as they can and do occur within organizations, which, if not handled properly, can result in devastating disasters.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Clearly, during crisis situations, external and internal causes are often compounded. Typically, crises are multi-causal and have the potential for catastrophic consequences (Carley and Harrald 1997). Thus, organizational performance during a crisis becomes a function of many factors including training, expertise, and organizational design.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Studies have shown that crises can degrade organizational performance and that organizational design can be an important factor in mitigating the impact of the crisis (Carley and Harrald 1997;). However, there are few studies that compare organizational designs with an eye to performance across a wide number of crises (two such studies are Drabek and Hoetmer 1991;Tamminga, Kilijanek and Adams 1981) and none that compares actual organizational behavior with a formal model.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Organizational Design and Adaptation in Response to Crises: Theory and Practice.

Lin¹,

Carley²

2001

AMPROC

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Organizations are occasionally faced with technologically based and accident triggered crises that can be extremely costly. An example is Bhopal, a major chemical spill. In the aftermath of such a disaster, organizations, both the one that suffered and others in the same or similar industries, often reexamine how they are structured. The questions arise: how should organizations be designed if they are to perform well in such crises, and would organizations benefit from structural changes during crises?We address these questions using a combination of computational analysis and archival data on 69 real organizations faced with crises. For each crisis incident, we contrast the organization's predicted and actual performance in a crisis situation. We find a high level of validation for the computational model.Using the validated computational model we then go on to address the hypothetical question: what is likely to have happened if the real organization had responded differently to the crisis. The findings show that there is no guarantee that a well performing organization in a general situation will continue to do so during a crisis situation. In addition, how to design or restructure an organization to mitigate the impact of crises will depend on the various design factors the organization employs. This work further demonstrates that often, the lessons learned by organizations when responding to crisis situations may be exactly the wrong lessons.

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“…Whether theories of organization can be applied to nonconventional events or crisis situations has largely been assumed but certainly not fully explored (Carley and Harrald 1997, Marcus and Nichols 1999, Perrow 1994. Crises are important organizational phenomena not only because they can cause severe consequences or even devastating disasters if not properly handled, but also because they are becoming inevitable, given the increasingly complex and technology-oriented processes of organizations (Perrow 1984, Shrivastava 1987.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Organizational Design and Restructuring in Response to Crises: Lessons from Computational Modeling and Real-World Cases

Lin

Xing

Ismail

et al. 2006

Organization Science

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O rganizations are occasionally faced with technology-based and accident-triggered crises that may cause costly disasters if not handled properly. Questions arise: How should organizations, with their complex processes and human involvement, be designed if they are to perform well in such crises? Would organizations benefit from structural changes during crises? From a neo-information processing perspective that views organizations as composed of cognitively restricted, socially situated, and task-oriented actors, we argue that the causes and consequences of crises may be better understood through the systematic examination of both environmental and organizational factors. We address our research questions using a rather unique approach: a matched analysis of 80 real organizational cases and 80 computer-simulated organizations. The findings show that a crisis can present critical challenges to organizational performance both externally and internally, and that there is no design guarantee that a high-performing organization will continue to perform well during a crisis situation. In addition, when organizations restructure to adapt to crisis situations, they often face the serious challenges of having to understand not only the external environment, but also organizational design traps.

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Organizational Learning Under Fire

Cited by 99 publications

References 24 publications

Planning of Health Non-Governmental Organizations in Palestine under the Conditions of Instability

Planning of Health Non-Governmental Organizations in Palestine under the Conditions of Instability

Organizational Design and Adaptation in Response to Crises: Theory and Practice.

Organizational Design and Restructuring in Response to Crises: Lessons from Computational Modeling and Real-World Cases

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