Content area
Full text
The impact of organizational crises has never been stronger. Yet previous research on crisis management lacks adequate integration. In this article we attempt to integrate and build upon current knowledge to create a multidisciplinary approach to crisis management research, using psychological, social-political, and technological-structural research perspectives. We offer definitions of organizational crisis and crisis management, as well as a framework that depicts the crisis management process and researchable propositions for the integration of these perspectives. We also suggest implications for research and practice.
During the past dozen years, many scholars have conducted conceptual and empirical studies on the topic of large-scale organizational crises (e.g., Lagadec, 1990, 1993; Mitroff, Pauchant & Shrivastava, 1988; Pearson & Mitroff, 1993; Perrow, 1984; Roberts, 1990; Schwartz, 1987; Shrivastava, 1993; Weick, 1988). Understandably, as with many new areas of research, these studies lack adequate integration with one another (Shrivastava, 1993). The cross-disciplinary nature of organizational crises particularly has contributed to this lack of integration (Shrivastava, 1993). Specifically, organizational crises inherently are phenomena for which psychological, social-political, and technological-structural issues act as important forces in their creation and management (Pauchant & Douville, 1994). Because the study of organizational crises involves multiple disciplines, researchers believe that crises must be studied and managed using a systems approach (Bowonder & Linstone, 1987; Pauchant & Mitroff, 1992). In other words, researchers believe that psychological, social-political, and technological-structural issues should be explicitly considered and integrated when studying and managing organizational crises.
Some scholars, in their studies, explicitly embrace a multidisciplinary approach (e.g., Fink, Beak, & Taddeo, 1971; Mitroff et al., 1988; Shrivastava, Mitroff, Miller, & Miglani, 1988; Staw, Sandelands, & Dutton, 1981). Many others, however, analyze the causes, consequences, and management of organizational crises from a single disciplinary frame (Shrivastava, 1993). The result is a "Tower of Babel" effect, where "there are many different disciplinary voices, talking in different languages to different issues and audiences" (Shrivastava, 1993: 33) about the same topic: organizational crises. We assert that this lack of integration has kept research on organizational crises at the periphery of management theory.
To take a needed step toward a multidisciplinary approach to the study of organizational crises (Lagadec, 1993; Pauchant & Douville, 1994; Roberts, 1993; Shrivastava, 1993), we illustrate, in this article, alternative views on...