This research is a case study of the events following the Challenger accident and focuses on the way in which members of NASA before the accident and the Presidential Commission following the accident acted in ways to protect the survival of NASA as a viable agency. The central theme of the strategies of protection was to localize the blame to individuals at lower levels in NASA and to fix blame on a communications failure (a technical problem) rather than blaming the leadership of NASA (an institutional problem). In its conclusion the article addresses the issues involved in crossing entrepreneurial cultures that include risk and high technology with bureaucratic cultures that are safe and procedural.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Altman, E.I., Hadelman, R. and Naraganan, P., 1977. A new model to identify bankruptcy risk of corporations . Journal of Banking and Finance, 1: 29-54.
2.
Bittner, E., 1974. The concept of organization. In: R. Turner, (Editor), Ethnomethodology. Penguin, Markham, Ont.: 69-81.
3.
Block, P., 1986. The Empowered Manager: Positive Political Skills at Work . Jossey-Bass, San Franciso, CA.
4.
Brickman, P., Ryan, K. and Wortman, C., 1975. Causal chains: attribution of responsibility as a function of immediate and prior causes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32: 1060-1067.
5.
Brown, W.R., 1982. Attention and the rhetoric of social intervention. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 64: 17-27.
6.
Bruner, J., 1986. Actual Minds, Possible Worlds. Harvard University Press, Harvard, MA.
7.
Bryson, J.M., 1984. The role of forums, arenas, and courts in organizational design and change. Discussion paper No. 6. Strategic Management Research Center, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN.
8.
Cohen, M.D. and March, J.G., 1974. Leadership and Ambiguity: the American College President . McGraw-Hill, New York.
9.
Cohen, M.D., March, J.G. and Olsen, J.P., 1972. A garbage can model of organizational choice. Administrative Science Quarterly,17: 1-25.
10.
Deal, T. and Kennedy, A., 1982. Corporate Cultures: the Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life. Addison Wesley, Reading, MA .
11.
Edelman, M., 1971. Politics as Symbolic Action: Mass Arousal and Quiescence . Markham, Chicago, IL.
12.
Eisenberg, E., 1984. Ambiguity as strategy in organizational communication . Communication Monographs, 51: 227-242.
13.
Feldman, M.S. and March, J.G., 1981. Information in organizations as signal and symbol. Administrative Science Quarterly,26: 171-186.
14.
Fisher, W.R., 1984. Narration as a human communication paradigm: the case of public moral argument. Communication Monographs, 51: 1-22.
Gephart, R.P., 1978. Status degradation and organizational succession: an ethnomethodological approach. Administrative Science Quarterly,23: 553-581.
17.
Goffman, E., 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Doubleday, Garden City, NY.
18.
Hamilton, V.L., 1986. Chains of command: responsibility and attribution in hierarchies . Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 16: 188-238.
19.
Hawes, L.C., 1971. Information overload and the organization of 1984. Western Speech Communication Journal, 35: 191-198.
20.
Kanter, R.M., 1985. Unpublished speech presented to the IBM Plant inAustin, TX.
21.
March, J.G. and Olsen, J.P. (Editors), 1976. Ambiguity and Choice in Organizations . Universitetsflorlaget, Bergen , Norway.
22.
March, J.G. and Simon, H., 1958. Organizations. Wiley, New York.
23.
Miller, J.G., 1964. Psychological aspects of communication overload. In: R.W. Raggoner and D.J. Carek (Editors), International Psychiatry Clinics: Communication and Clinical Practice. Little, Brown & Co., Boston, MA: 201-224.
24.
Mintzberg, H., 1983. Power in and around Organizations. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
25.
Pascale, R.T. and Athos, A.G., 1981. The Art of Japanese Management. Warner Books, New York.
26.
Perrow, C., 1981. Normal accident at Three Mile Island. Society, 18: 17-26.
27.
Perrow, C., 1984. Normal Accidents: Living with High Risk Technologies. Basic Books, New York.
28.
Peters, T. and Waterman, R., 1982. In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best Run Companies. Harper and Row, New York .
29.
Peters, T. and Austin, N., 1985. A Passion for Excellence: the Leadership Difference. Random House, New York.
30.
Poole, M.S., Siebold, D.R. and McPhee, R.D., 1985. Group decision-making as a structurational process. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 71: 74-102.
31.
Ranson, S., Hinings, B. and Greenwood, R., 1980. The structuring of organizational structures. Administrative Science Quarterly,25: 1-17.
32.
Report of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident . Washington, DC, 1986.
33.
Riley, P., 1983. A structurationist account of political culture. Administrative Science Quarterly,25: 414-437.
34.
Shrivastava, P., 1987. Bhopal: Anatomy of a Crisis. Ballinger , Cambridge, MA.
35.
Souder, W.E., 1983. Organizing for modem technology and innovation: a review and synthesis. Technovation, 2: 27-44.
36.
Strauss, A., 1978. Negotiations: Varieties, Contexts, Processes and Social Order. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.
37.
Turner, B.A., 1976. The organizational and interorganizational development of disasters. Administrative Science Quarterly,21: 378-397.
38.
Vaughn, D., 1986. Structural secrecy and organizational misconduct: NASA and the space shuttle Challenger. Paper presented at the Symposium on Secrecy and Disclosure in Organizations, Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL.
Weick, K.E., 1979. The Social Psychology of Organizing. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.
41.
Weick, K.E., 1985. Systematic observational methods. In: G. Lindzey and E. Arronson (Editors), The Handbook of Social Psychology, (3rd ed. ), Vol. 1: Theory and Method. Random House, New York.
