Organization at the Limit Lessons from the Columbia Disaster

by Starbuck, William; Farjoun, Moshe

• ISBN13: 9781405131087
• ISBN10: 140513108X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-09-12
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

Tragedies like the Columbia disaster are distressing reminders that things can go wrong in large, highly regarded organizations. Although we embrace new technologies eagerly, we are reluctant to accept the risks of innovation. Moreover, some technologies and organizations may be too complex to control effectively. What makes some organizations more prone to accidents? Do the very measures taken to increase safety contribute to accidents? Can societies, organizations, and individuals learn from failures and reduce risks? Against this backdrop, Professors William H. Starbuck of New York University and Moshe Farjoun of York University have invited diverse experts to contribute insights about the Columbia accident and the organizational lessons it suggests. This book thus presents many viewpoints on the complex behavioral factors that led to disaster.

Author Biography

William H. Starbuck is ITT Professor of Creative Management in the Stern School of Business at New York University. He has been the editor of Administrative Science Quarterly and chaired the screening committee for senior Fulbright awards in business management; he was the President of the Academy of Management, and he is a Fellow in the Academy of Management, American Psychological Association, American Psychological Society, British Academy of Management, and Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. He has published more than 120 articles on accounting, bargaining, business strategy, computer programming, computer simulation, forecasting, decision-making, human--computer interaction, learning, organizational design, organizational growth and development, perception, scientific methods, and social revolutions.

Moshe Farjoun is an associate professor at the Schulich School of Business, York University, Toronto. His research interests lie in the intersection of strategic management and organization. His research has explored market and organizational dynamics, particularly as they pertain to the processes of strategy formulation, implementation and change. His articles have appeared in Strategic Management Journal, Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, and Academy of Management Review.

Table of Contents

Notes on Contributors	p. viii
Preface	p. xvii
Introduction	p. 1
Introduction: Organizational Aspects of the Columbia Disaster	p. 3
Synopsis: NASA, the CAIB Report, and the Columbia Disaster	p. 11
The Context of the Disaster	p. 19
History and Policy at the Space Shuttle Program	p. 21
System Effects: On Slippery Slopes, Repeating Negative Patterns, and Learning from Mistake?	p. 41
Organizational Learning and Action in the Midst of Safety Drift: Revisiting the Space Shuttle Program's Recent History	p. 60
The Space Between in Space Transportation: A Relational Analysis of the Failure of STS-107	p. 81
Influences on Decision-Making	p. 99
The Opacity of Risk: Language and the Culture of Safety in NASA's Space Shuttle Program	p. 101
Coping with Temporal Uncertainty: When Rigid, Ambitious Deadlines Don't Make Sense	p. 122
Attention to Production Schedule and Safety as Determinants of Risk-Taking in NASA's Decision to Launch the Columbia Shuttle	p. 140
The Imaging Debate	p. 157
Making Sense of Blurred Images: Mindful Organizing in Mission STS-107	p. 159
The Price of Progress: Structurally Induced Inaction	p. 178
Data Indeterminacy: One NASA, Two Modes	p. 202
The Recovery Window: Organizational Learning Following Ambiguous Threats	p. 220
Barriers to the Interpretation and Diffusion of Information about Potential Problems in Organizations: Lessons from the Space Shuttle Columbia	p. 246
Beyond Explanation	p. 267
Systems Approaches to Safety: NASA and the Space Shuttle Disasters	p. 269
Creating Foresight: Lessons for Enhancing Resilience from Columbia	p. 289
Making NASA More Effective	p. 309
Observations on the Columbia Accident	p. 336
Conclusion	p. 347
Lessons from the Columbia Disaster	p. 349
Index of Citations	p. 364
Subject Index	p. 370
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