Organization at the Limit: Lessons from the 'Columbia' Disaster

The book offers important insight relevant to Corporate, Government and Global organizations management in general. The internationally recognised authors tackle vital issues in decision making, how organizational risk is managed, how can technological and organizational complexities interact, what are the impediments for effective learning and how large, medium, and small organizations can, and in fact must, increase their resilience. Managers, organizational consultants, expert professionals, and training specialists; particularly those in high risk organizations, may find the issues covered in the book relevant to their daily work and a potential catalyst for thought and action.

• A timely analysis of the Columbia disaster and the organizational lessons that can be learned from it.
  
• Includes contributions from those involved in the Investigation Board report into the incident.
  
• Tackles vital issues such as the role of time pressures and goal conflict in decision making, and the impediments for effective learning.
  
• Examines how organizational risk is managed and how technological and organizational complexities interact.
  
• Assesses how large, medium, and small organizations can, and in fact must, increase their resilience.
  
• Questions our eagerness to embrace new technologies, yet reluctance to accept the risks of innovation.
  
• Offers a step by step understanding of the complex factors that led to disaster.

William H. Starbuck is ITT Professor of Creative Management in the Stern School of Business at New York University. He has been the editor of Administrative Science Quarterly and chaired the screening committee for senior Fulbright awards in business management; he was the President of the Academy of Management, and he is a Fellow in the Academy of Management, American Psychological Association, American Psychological Society, British Academy of Management, and Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. He has published more than 120 articles on accounting, bargaining, business strategy, computer programming, computer simulation, forecasting, decision-making, human--computer interaction, learning, organizational design, organizational growth and development, perception, scientific methods, and social revolutions.

Moshe Farjoun is an associate professor at the Schulich School of Business, York University, Toronto. His research interests lie in the intersection of strategic management and organization. His research has explored market and organizational dynamics, particularly as they pertain to the processes of strategy formulation, implementation and change. His articles have appeared in Strategic Management Journal, Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, and Academy of Management Review.