Provided by Elke Schüßler, Johannes Kepler University of Linz
Guiding questions: What does a pandemic have to do with organization theory? How do decision-making processes influence how organizations and societies deal with crisis? When does crisis (fail to) lead to organizational or societal change?
Lecture
Core readings
Farley, J., Baker, D., Batker, D., Koliba, C., Matteson, R., Mills, R., & Pittman, J. (2007). Opening the policy window for ecological economics: Katrina as a focusing event. Ecological Economics, 63(2-3), 344-354. PDF
Kornberger, M., Leixnering, S., & Meyer, R. E. (2019). The logic of tact: How decisions happen in situations of crisis. Organization Studies, 40(2), 239-266. PDF
Contemporary news articles
Baker, P. (2020). ‘We Can’t Go Back to Normal’: How Will Coronavirus Change the World? The Guardian, March 31.
and
Grey, S. & MacAskill, A. (2020). Special Report: Johnson Listened to his Scientists about Coronavirus – but They Were Slow to Sound the Alarm. Mobile Reuters, April 7.
Post-lecture assignment
Write a short (about 250 words each) memo about the following two questions:
- Which models and logics of organizational decision-making from your readings and the lecture can you recognize in practice in the current Covid19 crisis? Find one example and outline the decision-making dynamic.
- In this example, discuss the role of actors in using the Covid19 crisis to bring about organizational/industrial/societal change.
Background readings
Cohen, M. D., March, J. G., & Olsen, J. P. (1972). A garbage can model of organizational choice. Administrative Science Quarterly, 1-25. PDF
Müller-Seitz, G., & Schüßler, E. (2013). From event management to managing events. Managementforschung, 23, 193-226. SSRN
Rerup, C. (2009). Attentional triangulation: Learning from unexpected rare crises. Organization Science, 20(5), 876-893. PDF
Background video
Crisis management (by Prof. Markus Reihlen, Leuphana University Lüneburg)
Organizing in Times of Crisis 