The importance of failure theories in assessing crisis management
The Columbia space shuttle disaster revisited
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12651925 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Arjen Boin (0000-0002-0923-1484, Utrecht University, Netherlands & Louisiana State University, USA, corresponding author), Denis Fishbacher-Smith (University of Glasgow, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2011 |
| Volume | 30 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 77-87 |
| Publication date | 2011-04-18 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Policy and Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1449-4035 • E-ISSN: 1839-3373 |
| Publisher | Elsevier BV (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1016/j.polsoc.2011.03.003 |
| OpenAlex | W3126044648 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
| References cited | 23 |
An adequate assessment of crisis management failure (and success) requires a validated causal theory. Without such a theory, any assessment of crisis management performance amounts to little more than a “just so” story. This is the key argument of this paper, which describes how hindsight biases and selective use of social science theory gave rise to a suggestive and convincing – but not necessarily correct – assessment of NASA's role in the Columbia space shuttle disaster (1 February 2003). The Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) identified NASA's organizational culture and safety system as a primary source of failure. The CAIB report reads as a stunning indictment of organizational incompetence: the organization that thrilled the world with the Apollo project had “lost” its safety culture and failed to prevent a preventable disaster. This paper examines the CAIB findings in light of the two dominant theoretical schools that address organizational disasters (normal accident and high reliability theory). It revisits the Columbia shuttle disaster and concludes that the CAIB findings do not sit well with the insights of these schools
Accident (philosophy · Argument (complex analysis · Columbia university · Crisis management · Economics · Epistemology · Hindsight bias · Indictment · Management · Operations research · Organizational theory · Political science · Sociology · Space Shuttle · Disaster Management and Resilience · Engineering · Law · Occupational Health and Safety Research · Psychology · Risk and Safety Analysis · Social Psychology
Managing Uncertainty in Crisis
Making Space
Identifying Organizational and Contractual Drivers behind Subway Construction Accidents in China
Organization change failure, deep structures and temporality
Why didn't they See it Coming? Warning Signs, Acceptable Risks and the Global Financial Crisis
Who saw it coming? The UK’s great financial crisis
A public policy approach to understanding the nature and causes of foreign policy failure
High Reliability Organizations
Leadership in administration
Complex organizations
The Limits of Safety
Governing after Crisis
What Is a Disaster
Understanding Prison Riots
The "Logic" of Organizational Irrationality
Assessing Nasa’s Safety Culture
How to Hunt a Very Reliable Organization
Self-Organized Criticality
| Citations per year | 0.54 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2013 - 2026 (14) |
| Highly cited | No |