Distributed knowledge and indeterminate meaning: the case of the Columbia Shuttle flight
Article Type: Abstracts From: Human Resource Management International Digest, Volume 17, Issue 6
Dunbar R.L.M., Garud R. Organization Studies (Germany), April 2009, Vol. 30 No. 4, Start page: 397, No. of pages: 25
Purpose – Studies the organizational processes involved in the investigation of the processes involved during NASA’s disastrous February 2003 Columbia space shuttle flight, as mission team members struggled to make sense of the significance of an unexpected event (foam-shedding from an external tank striking the Shuttle’s wing under-surface). Design/methodology/approach – A review of the literature of sensemaking and blaming, in the context of disasters, is presented. Reports the results that emerged when a case description of what happened was presented to a group of 12 NASA middle managers participating in a conference held to explore NASA’s organization design and other issues that were raised by the Columbia disaster,where recorders attended the discussion sessions and noted how the authors’ideas generated many reactions among NASA personnel, who found fresh insights into the issues that NASA had confronted, when a distributed lens was applied to examine the situation. Notes NASA’s history and its dual performance criteria, one around meeting safety, and the other around maintaining schedules,to illustrate the institutionalization of two performance criteria at NASA. Findings – The results indicated that, when faced with an unexpected and potentially worrying event, there were intensive efforts by many NASA personnel to identify an appropriate course of action. Concludes that conflicting hypotheses were considered by the Mission Management Team and also by other groups, but people chose to make sense of the unfolding events based on their own frames of reference, using the artefacts, metrics, routines, and social cues that they had access to and within which they were embedded. Originality/value– Directs attention to the many approaches that people use to make sense of a disaster as it unfolds. ISSN: 0170-8406 Reference: 38AK480
Keywords: Organizational processes, Crisis management,Man-made disasters, Organizational analysis, Space vehicles, Spacecraft, USA,Case studies
