A brief failure of one item on the display of the information system (IS) on Flight AF 447 wrought havoc in the coordination between the pilots and the aircraft, leading to the loss of all 228 lives on board. In this essay, we ask the following question: How can the very instruments supposed to ensure our safety and make organizations more reliable lead a team to destruction? We propose that the imbrication of material and human agencies in such highly automated systems drives an attitude of “mindful indifference” (i.e., the capacity for experienced operators to distinguish problems that could turn into critical ones from problems that can be tolerated on account of the overall system reliability). An abrupt change in this imbrication provoked emotional distress and focused the pilots’ attention toward the machine, instead of triggering an organizational process of sensemaking. We highlight the role of leadership in such situations.
AustinJ. L. (1970). Philosophical papers. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
2.
BainbridgeL. (1983). Ironies of automation. Automatica, 19, 775-779.
3.
BarleyS. R. (1986). Technology as an occasion for structuring: Evidence from observations of CT scanners and the social order of radiology departments. Administrative Science Quarterly, 31, 78-108.
4.
BarleyS. R. (1990). The alignment of technology and structure through roles and networks. Administrative Science Quarterly, 35, 61-103.
5.
BarsadeS. G. (2002). The ripple effect: Emotional contagion and its influence on group behavior. Administrative Science Quarterly, 47, 644-675.
6.
BartholR.KuN. (1959). Regression under stress to first learned behavior. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 59, 134-136.
7.
BartonM. A.SutcliffeK. M.VogusT. J.DeWittT. (2015). Performing under uncertainty: Contextualized engagement in wildland firefighting. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 23, 74-83.
8.
BeaneM.OrlikowskiW. J. (2015). What difference does a robot make? The material enactment of distributed coordination. Organization Science, 26, 1553-1573.
9.
BeunzaD.StarkD. (2004). Tools of the trade: The socio-technology of arbitrage in a Wall Street trading room. Industrial and Corporate Change, 13, 369-400.
10.
BrownJ. S.DuguidP. (2001). Knowledge and organization: A social-practice perspective. Organization Science, 12, 198-213.
11.
Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses pour la Sécurité de l’Aviation Civile. (2011). Interim report n°3 on the accident on 1st June 2009 to the Airbus A330-203 registered F-GZCP operated by Air France flight AF 447 Rio de Janeiro–Paris. Paris, France: Ministère de l’Ecologie, du Développement Durable, des Transports et du Logement.
12.
Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses pour la Sécurité de l’Aviation Civile. (2012). Final report on the accident on 1st June 2009 to the Airbus A330-203 registered F-GZCP operated by Air France Flight AF 447 Rio de Janeiro–Paris. Paris, France: Ministère de l’Ecologie, du Développement Durable, des Transports et du Logement.
13.
CallonM. (Ed.). (1998). The laws of the markets. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
14.
CarlileP. R. (2004). Transferring, translating, and transforming: An integrative framework for managing knowledge across boundaries. Organization Science, 15, 555-568.
15.
CiborraC. (2006). Imbrications of representations: Risk and digital technologies. Journal of Management Studies, 43, 1339-1356.
16.
ColbertA.YeeN.GeorgeG. (2016). The digitial workforce and the workplace of the future. Academy of Management Journal, 59, 731-739.
17.
CornelissenJ. P.MantereS.VaaraE. (2014). The contraction of meaning: The combined effect of communication, emotions, and materiality on sensemaking in the Stockwell shooting. Journal of Management Studies, 51, 699-736.
18.
DunbarR. L. M.GarudR. (2009). Distributed knowledge and indeterminate meaning: The case of the Columbia Shuttle flight. Organization Studies, 30, 397-421.
19.
FavreC. (1994). Fly-by-wire for commercial aircraft: The Airbus experience. International Journal of Control, 59, 139-157.
20.
FeldmanM. S.OrlikowskiW. J. (2011). Theorizing practice and practicing theory. Organization Science, 22, 1240-1253.
21.
FiedlerF. E. (1967). A theory of leadership effectiveness. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
22.
FreyC. B.OsborneM. A. (2013). The future of employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerization? (Working paper). Oxford, UK: Oxford Martin Programme on Technology and Employment.
23.
FrijdaN. H. (1986). The emotions. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
24.
GardnerH. (1983). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York, NY: Basic Books.
25.
GärtnerC. (2013). Cognition, knowing and learning in the flesh: Six views on embodied knowing in organization studies. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 29, 338-352.
26.
GeorgeJ. M.ZhouJ. (2007). Dual tuning in a supportive context: Joint contributions of positive mood, negative mood, and supervisory behaviors to employee creativity. Academy of Management Journal, 50, 605-622.
27.
GherardiS. (2000). Practice-based theorizing on learning and knowing in the organization. Organization, 7, 211-223.
28.
GherardiS. (2006). Organizational knowledge: The texture of workplace learning. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
29.
GiddensA. (1984). The constitution of society: Outline of the theory of structuration. Berkeley: University of California Press.
30.
GioiaD. A.ChittipeddiK. (1991). Sensemaking and sensegiving in strategic change initiation. Strategic Management Journal, 12, 433-448.
31.
GioiaD. A.MehraA. (1996). Review of sensemaking in organizations. Academy of Management Review, 21, 1226-1230.
32.
HannahS. T.Uhl-BienM.AvolioB. J.CavarettaF. L. (2009). A framework for examining leadership in extreme contexts. Leadership Quarterly, 20, 897-919.
33.
HatfieldE.CacioppoJ. T.RapsonR. L. (1994). Emotional contagion. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
34.
HeeD. D.PickrellB. D.BeaR. G.RobertsK. H.WilliamsonR. B. (1999). Safety Management Assessment System (SMAS): A process for identifying and evaluating human and organization factors in marine system operations with field test results. Reliability Engineering & Safety System, 65, 125-140.
35.
HoltR.CornelissenJ. P. (2013). Sensemaking revisited. Management Learning, 45, 525-539.
36.
JettQ. R.GeorgeJ. M. (2003). Work interrupted: A closer look at the role of interruptions in organizational life. Academy of Management Review, 28, 494-507.
37.
KaiserS.Müller-SeitzG.CreusenU. (2008). Passion wanted! Socialization of positive emotions in consulting firms. International Journal of Work Organization and Emotion, 2, 305-320.
38.
KallinikosJ. (2009). On the computational rendition of reality: Artefacts and human agency. Organization, 16, 183-202.
39.
KellyJ. R.BarsadeS. G. (2001). Mood and emotions in small groups and work teams. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 86, 99-130.
40.
KernbergO. F. (1978). Leadership and organizational functioning: Organizational regression. International Journal of Group Psychotherapy, 28, 3-25.
KortE. D. (2008). What, after all, is leadership? “Leadership” and plural action. Leadership Quarterly, 19, 409-425.
43.
LeonardiP. M. (2011). When flexible routines meet flexible technologies: Affordance, constraint, and the imbrication of human and material agencies. MIS Quarterly, 35, 147-167.
44.
LeonardiP. M.BarleyS. R. (2008). Materiality and change: Challenges to building better theory about technology and organizing. Information and Organization, 18, 159-176.
45.
LevinthalD.RerupC. (2006). Crossing an apparent chasm: Bridging mindful and less-mindful perspectives on organizational learning. Organization Science, 17, 502-513.
46.
LewisK. M. (2000). When leaders display emotion: How followers respond to negative emotional expression of male and female leaders. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 21, 221-234.
47.
MacKenzieD. (2006). An engine not a camera: How financial models shape markets. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
48.
MaitlisS. (2005). The social processes of organizational sensemaking. Academy of Management Journal, 48, 21-49.
49.
MaitlisS.ChristiansonM. (2014). Sensemaking in organizations: Taking stock and moving forwards. Academy of Management Annals, 8, 57-125.
50.
MaitlisS.LawrenceT. B. (2007). Triggers and enablers of sensegiving in organizations. Academy of Management Journal, 50, 57-84.
51.
MaitlisS.SonensheinS. (2010). Sensemaking in crisis and change: Inspiration and insights from Weick (1988). Journal of Management Studies, 47, 551-580.
52.
MaitlisS.VogusT. J.LawrenceT. B. (2013). Sensemaking and emotion in organizations. Organizational Psychology Review, 3, 222-247.
53.
MajchrzakA.JarvenpaaS. L.HollingsheadA. B. (2007). Coordinating expertise among emergent groups responding to disasters. Organization Science, 18, 147-161.
54.
NicoliniD. (2011). Practice as the site of knowing: Insights from the field of telemedicine. Organization Science, 22, 602-620.
55.
OrlikowskiW. J. (2002). Knowing in practice: Enacting a collective capability in distributed organizing. Organization Science, 13, 249-273.
56.
OrlikowskiW. J. (2005). Material works: Exploring the situated entanglement of technological performativity and human agency. Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems, 17, 183-186.
57.
OrlikowskiW. J. (2007). Sociomaterial practices: Exploring technology at work. Organization Studies, 28, 1435-1448.
58.
OrlikowskiW. J.RobeyD. (1991). Information technology and the structuring of organizations. Information Systems Research, 2, 143-169.
59.
OrlikowskiW. J.ScottS. V. (2008). Sociomateriality: Challenging the separation of technology, work and organization. Academy of Management Annals, 2, 433-474.
60.
OrtmannG. (2010). On drifting rules and standards. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 26, 204-214.
PicardR. W. (1997). Affective computing. Boston, MA: MIT Press.
63.
PinchT. (2008). Technology and institutions: Living in a material world. Theory and Society, 37, 461-483.
64.
PirolliP.RussellD. M. (2011). Introduction to the special issue on sensemaking. Human-Computer Interaction, 26, 1-8.
65.
ReasonJ. (1990). Human error. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
66.
ReasonJ. (2008). The human contribution: Unsafe acts, accidents and heroic recoveries. Farnham, UK: Ashgate.
67.
SchultzeU.OrlikowskiW. J. (2010). Virtual worlds: A performative perspective on globally distributed, immersive work. Information Systems Research, 21, 810-821.
68.
SeidelS.ReckerJ. C.vom BrockeJ. (2013). Sensemaking and sustainable practicing: Functional affordances of information systems in green transformation. MIS Quarterly, 37, 1275-1299.
69.
SnookS. A. (2000). Friendly fire: The accidental shootdown of U.S. Black Hawks over northern Iraq. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
70.
SonensheinS. (2009). Emergence of ethical issues during strategic change implementation. Organization Science, 20, 223-239.
71.
SteinM. (2004). The critical period of disasters: Insights from sense-making and psychoanalytic theory. Human Relations, 57, 1243-1261.
72.
SteinM.-K.NewellS.WagnerE. L.GalliersR. D. (2014). Felt quality of sociomaterial relations: Introducing emotions into sociomaterial theorizing. Information and Organization, 24, 156-175.
73.
StiglianiI.RavasiD. (2010). Organizing thoughts and connecting brains: Material practices and the transition from individual to group-level prospective sensemaking. Academy of Management Journal, 55, 1232-1259.
74.
VaughanD. (1999). The dark side of organizations: Mistake, misconduct and disaster. Annual Review of Sociology, 25, 271-305.
75.
WeickK. E. (1979). Sensemaking in organizations: Small structures with large consequences. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
76.
WeickK. E. (1988). Enacted sensemaking in crisis situations. Journal of Management Studies, 25, 305-317.
77.
WeickK. E. (1990). The vulnerable system: An analysis of the Tenerife air disaster. Journal of Management, 16, 571-593.
78.
WeickK. E. (1993). The collapse of sensemaking in organizations: The Mann Gulch disaster. Administrative Science Quarterly, 38, 628-652.
79.
WeickK. E. (1995). Sensemaking in organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
80.
WeickK. E. (2007). Drop your tools: On reconfiguring management education. Journal of Management Education, 31, 5-16.
81.
WeickK. E.RobertsK. H. (1993). Collective mind in organizations: Heedful interrelating on flight decks. Administrative Science Quarterly, 38, 357-381.
82.
WeickK. E.SutcliffeK. M. (2006). Mindfulness and the quality of organizational attention. Organization Science, 17, 514-524.
83.
WeickK. E.SutcliffeK. M. (2015). Managing the unexpected: Sustained performance in a complex world. New York, NY: Wiley.
84.
WeickK. E.SutcliffeK. M.ObstfeldD. (2005). Organizing and the process of sensemaking. Organization Science, 16, 409-421.
85.
WhitemanG. (2010). Management studies than break your heart. Journal of Management Inquiry, 19, 328-337.
86.
WhitemanG.CooperW. H. (2011). Ecological sensemaking. Academy of Management Journal, 54, 889-911.
87.
WolffS. B.PescosolidoA. T.DruskatV. U. (2002). Emotional intelligence as the basis of leadership emergence in self-managing teams. Leadership Quarterly, 13, 505-522.
