An analysis of the Columbia shuttle tragedy, exploring high-risk organizational responses to ambiguous threats.
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Analyzing the events surrounding the Columbia shuttle tragedy, we explore a high-risk organization's response to a recovery window, defined as the period between an ambiguous threat and a major accident (or prevented accident) in which constructive collective action is feasible. We show that Columbia's recovery window was characterized by active discounting of risk, fragmented disciplinary-based analyses, and a wait-and-see orientation to action. We propose mechanisms at three levels of analysis...