Learning from Crisis: A Framework of Management, Learning and Implementation in Response to Crises
This study deals with the relationship between organizational flexibility, crisis response and learning.
As a point of departure the authors use previous research from the field of crisis management which tells us that experience can shape crisis responses in two ways: as a way of repeating former routines or as a precondition for improvisation. Based on an abductive study, the authors argue that the mandates of top-managerial teams, where we differentiate between centralized and decentralized, are closely connected to the way organizations learn – in behavioral or cognitive modes.
Findings from two case studies show how the decentralized managerial group learned in a behavioral fashion by creating new formal policies and structures, while organizational members in the centralized managerial group relied on individual cognitive structures as a way of ‘storing’ lessons learned. The study ends by discussing the findings from a crisis management perspective, where the authors propose that the two modes of learning profoundly affect the crucial issue of flexibility in organizational crisis response.
See Learning from Crisis: A Framework of Management, Learning and Implementation in Response to Crises, by Edward Deverell, CRISMART/Swedish National Defence College and Utrecht University; and, Eva-Karin Olsson, CRISMART/Swedish National Defence College, from Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management (free registration required).
Tags: crisis management, crisis response
