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International Journal of Management Reviews, Vol. 15, 205–224 (2013)

DOI: 10.1111/ijmr.12002

Researching Tomorrow’s Crisis:

Methodological Innovations and
Wider Implications
David A. Buchanan* and David Denyer
School of Management, Cranfield University, Cranfield, Bedfordshire MK43 0AL, UK
*Corresponding author email: david.buchanan@cranfield.ac.uk

The incidence and impact of crises, disasters and other extreme events appears to be
increasing, thus heightening the significance of crisis research. The nature of such
events – sudden, inconceivable, damaging, sensitive, unique – has encouraged un-
conventional methodological perspectives and practices. A review of these develop-
ments is timely. This article presents a bounded, temporally bracketed overview of the
literatures exploring extreme events, structured around an ‘ideal type’ event sequence
with six phases: incubation period, incident, crisis management, investigation, organ-
izational learning and implementation of ‘lessons learned’. While not a traditional
review, this approach serves to overcome problems associated with phenomena resist-
ant to precise definition, and maps the structure of a field characterized by fragmen-
tation, insular traditions and epistemological pluralism, generating a template against
which crises can be explored. Crisis research appears to have overcome the problems
associated with relying on retrospective research designs, accessing sensitive data,
addressing novel ethical concerns, developing multi-level explanations and using single
case studies to develop generalizable theory. The wider adoption of these approaches in
‘mainstream’ organization and management studies may prompt innovation and fresh
insights in other areas, particularly where the temporal structure of events, the role of
slow-moving causes, and conjunctural reasoning, play significant roles.

Tomorrow’s crisis of life, damage to property, disruption to business,

The perception that the incidence and impact of
crises are increasing has heightened the importance
of crisis research. Leveson (2004) argues that several
trends are influencing the causes and consequences
of accidents and crises, including: technological
change; digital systems producing new hazards and
failure modes; increasing complexity of human–
machine relationships; changing regulatory views of
safety; and decreased public tolerance for accident
losses. During the initial drafting of this paper in
March 2011, one of the strongest earthquakes ever
recorded occurred off the north-east coast of Japan.
The earthquake triggered an event sequence that
included a tsunami followed by containment failures
at a nuclear power plant, leading to considerable loss
damage to the Japanese economy, and censure for
government ministers and power company managers
for regulatory failures contributing to the power plant
problems (Kingston 2012). The previous year, in
April 2010, a blow-out and fire at the Macondo oil
well in the Gulf of Mexico destroyed the Deepwater
Horizon exploration rig, killing 11 and injuring 17
others. Spilling around five million barrels over the
next three months, and damaging the environment
and businesses on the Louisiana coast, this was the
worst oil spill in US history. The subsequent inquiry
attributed this disaster to a series of organization
and management failures (National Commission on
the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore
Drilling 2011a,b). While such events also occur
beyond the public gaze, ‘high-profile’ incidents have

© 2012 The Authors

International Journal of Management Reviews © 2012 British Academy of Management and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA
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206
coloured the contemporary social, political and eco-
nomic landscape by ensuring that the responses of
governments, regulators, other agencies and manage-
ment implicated in these events are scrutinized in
detail by the media.
A comparatively new field, crisis research has
grown steadily since the 1980s, creating a significant
published research base. Crisis research appears to
have at least three properties that create methodologi-
cal challenges for the field. First, crisis researchers
have been unable to agree definitions or typologies
concerning the events that interest them. Attempts to
define categories of incident must sit with the obser-
vation that many events belong in that category due
to interpretative social processes. Second, crisis
research is fragmented by ‘a myriad of disciplinary
approaches’; it appears in a cross section of general
and ‘niche’ journals, and ‘this fragmentation has kept
crisis research on the periphery of “mainstream” man-
agement theory’(James et al. 2011, p. 457). The result
of this fragmentation is the lack of integrating frame-
works, core concepts, agreed typologies or coherent
models to bind different perspectives together. Third,
researchers have been required to adopt designs and
methods considered unconventional in other areas,
and to use data from sources normally considered
unreliable and biased. This is a field where a
qualitative–processual paradigm is dominant, and
theory-building is often based on idiosyncratic cases
and small-n studies.
While those three challenges can be regarded as
weaknesses of this field, crisis research has made
significant contributions to management and organ-
ization studies. Weick’s (1988) seminal work on crisis
sense-making stimulated further work in that area
(e.g. Dunbar and Garud 2009; Stein 2004) and in other
domains. The study of crises has been the subject of
several special journal issues in organization and
management studies, such as the issue edited by Paul
Shrivastava focusing on industrial crises in Journal of
Management in 1988. Recent issues have focused on
‘learning from rare events’ (Organization Science;
Lampel et al. 2009) and ‘leadership in extreme con-
texts’ (Leadership Quarterly; Hannah et al. 2009).
Organization and management studies have also con-
tributed to crisis research. For example, Perrow’s
(1999) pioneering study of the Three Mile Island
nuclear power plant failure (first published 1984)
brought an organizational perspective to what was
previously seen as an engineering problem (Ford et al.
2005). While the contribution of crisis research to
management and organization studies is laudable,
International Journal of Management Reviews © 2012 British Academy of Management and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
D.A. Buchanan and D. Denyer
reviewing the work of Starbuck and Farjoun (2005) on
lessons from NASA’s Columbia disaster, Neville
(2008, p. 1486) also argues the case for ‘mainstream-
ing workplace safety into organizational studies, a
field in which it presently receives relatively minimal
attention’. James et al. (2011, p. 484) argue that ‘the
study of crisis has not been as prevalent and impactful
in mainstream management journals as we would
hope or expect’, and argue for ‘bridging’ strategies.
One such bridging strategy would involve organ-
ization and management studies adopting the event
sequence and temporal bracketing structure that
underpins this review, and which draws a coherent
map of a fragmented multidisciplinary field, illustrat-
ing the scope of different research perspectives and
their combined contributions to theory and practice.
The event sequence structure can be used as a posi-
tioning tool, illustrating relationships between
research traditions, and indicating the potential for
dialogue between disparate perspectives (Astley and
Van de Ven 1983; Tsoukas 2009a). A second bridging
strategy would be for organization and management
studies to adopt the innovative methodological per-
spectives and practices that have developed in crisis
research. The field appears to have overcome the
problems associated with retrospective designs, sen-
sitive data, ethical concerns, multi-level explana-
tions, and using single case studies to develop theory.
The wider adoption of these approaches in ‘main-
stream’ organization and management studies may
prompt innovation and fresh insights in other areas,
and in particular where the temporal structure of
events, the role of slow-moving causes, and conjunc-
tural reasoning, are significant.
This review has six stages. First, we describe our
methods. Second, we focus on terminology. Third, we
use the event sequence to map crisis research and its
methodological properties. Fourth, we discuss data
collection and analysis, and the task of developing
multi-level, processually inspired, temporally sensi-
tive explanations. Fifth, we explore the current chal-
lenges facing crisis research. Finally, we offer five
methodological suggestions for researching the next
– tomorrow’s – crisis.
Review approach
This journal’s editors have encouraged the submis-
sion of non-traditional literature reviews, ‘grounded
in, and developed from, a synthesis of previous
research in the area, or based on integrative reviews
© 2012 The Authors
Researching Tomorrow’s Crisis
that seek to merge findings from related areas’
(Macpherson and Jones 2010, p. 109). However, a
non-traditional approach raises criticisms relating to
the inclusion of relevant sources, and to selectivity
and bias. Macpherson and Jones (2010) also note the
lack of templates for unconventional reviews.
The field of crisis research is now extensive, and a
comprehensive review would reach beyond this jour-
nal’s word limit. The field includes a variety of spe-
cialist subjects such as crisis management, business
continuity, risk management, human factors and
safety science, as well as contributions from organ-
ization and management studies, engineering, psy-
chology, sociology, political science, complexity and
systems theory. The defining characteristic of frag-
mentation is the lack of interaction between research
groups, and the resulting limited use of one another’s
knowledge products (Tranfield and Starkey 1998).
Researchers addressing related issues maintain their
traditions and tend to avoid productive dialogue with
others. This appears to be the case with researchers in
the fields of high-reliability organizations, resilience
engineering, safety cultures and normal accidents
(Shrivastava et al. 2009).
Fragmentation is seen by some as a weakness of a
field of study. For example, Tranfield and Starkey
(1998) in their exploration of the nature and social
organization of management research, quote Gould-
ner’s (1971) famous assessment (of sociology) that,
‘a fragmented field is a weak field’. However, as
noted above, crises are ambiguous, complex and
socially constructed, and cannot necessarily be well
understood from a single perspective. If under-
standing, of both problems and solutions, is to guide
actions to improve management practice, diversity
and a plurality of perspectives can be regarded as a
strength.
One approach to overcoming fragmentation is to
find ways in which dialogue can be established
between different perspectives (Tsoukas 2009a).
This review is structured by a temporally bracketed
event sequence (Smith and Elliott 2007), detailed
below, from the pre-crisis or incubation period to
post-event change implementation (noting that the
start and end points of this sequence will often be
indeterminate; e.g. Leveson 2004). This approach is
analogous to the use of temporal bracketing for ana-
lysing process data (Langley 1999, 2009) and, as far
as we can establish, has not previously been
employed to structure a literature review. The devel-
opment of an ‘ideal type’ event sequence acts as a
template for this review, to map this multidiscipli-
© 2012 The Authors
International Journal of Management Reviews © 2012 British Academy of Management and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
207
nary field, to illustrate the structure of the varied
research perspectives and contributions, and to high-
light gaps.
This review is necessarily selective, focusing on
methodological perspectives and practices. Inclusion
criteria concern constructing a map of the field of
crisis research, based on insightful and iconic contri-
butions, demonstrating how research has focused on
different segments of the event sequence, identifying
areas where the focus has been more with practice
than with theory, and including studies that represent
a perspective, and/or highlight research design and
methods issues. As with geographical mapping, the
question of scale is a matter of judgement, based on
the purpose of the exercise. Our judgement is that a
more detailed mapping of crisis research would not
materially alter the view that is developed here of
the structure of the field, or of its methodological
properties, or our overall conclusions.
Crisis, what crisis?
When things go wrong, there is no shortage of
descriptors: accident, adverse event, catastrophe,
crisis, critical event, deviance, disaster, error, failure,
misconduct, mistake, near miss, never event, non-
conformity, sentinel event, serious incident, viola-
tion. For the purposes of this review, we use the term
‘extreme event’ as the overarching category label
(recognizing that some commentators use this term
differently; Hannah et al. 2009; James et al. 2011).
In other words, the accidental death of a hospital
patient, the loss of a space shuttle, the spillage of
toxic material, are all categorically extreme events.
This category thus displays exceptional variety.
Events such as ‘disasters’ are resistant to unambigu-
ous prior definitions that distinguish ‘real’ crises
from over-reactions to merely unusual or extra-
ordinary events. Some incidents are labelled as crises
because they are judged as such by those who are
implicated, and by observers, particularly regulatory
authorities and the media. Some events, it appears,
can be converted into crises or disasters as long as
there is political will and/or journalistic desire to do
so. The press and 24-hour television news channels
appear ever ready to declare a crisis in the interests of
a dramatic story (Davies 2009). Many constructs
used in this field can thus be defined and used in
different ways. For example, Laws and Prideaux
(2005, p. 6) distinguish between crisis, defined as
‘an unexpected problem seriously disrupting the
208
functioning of an organization’, and disaster, defined
as ‘unpredictable catastrophic change that can nor-
mally only be responded to after the event’. Some
definitions are based on the magnitude of the impact:
earthquakes, tsunamis, industrial explosions. For
example, the annual Sigma reports from the reinsur-
ance company Swiss Re are based on minimum
threshold values for financial losses, and numbers of
dead, injured or homeless; events that do not meet the
threshold values are not counted (Bevere et al. 2011).
Events with outcomes at or above the thresholds are
claimed categorically to be disasters. Yet such clas-
sifications are problematic. For example, the total
number of people who die each year on the British
road network, the number of deaths annually from
medical errors in the UK, and the number of people
who died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks are comparable
(around 3000), yet each of these ‘crises’ typically
invokes a different response, and they do not imme-
diately appear to be categorically related.
Along with other commentators, Weick (2010)
uses the terms ‘Bhopal crisis’ and ‘Bhopal disaster’
synonymously throughout his re-analysis of that inci-
dent. Gundel (2005), who also uses the terms crisis
and disaster synonymously, discusses the problems
of developing a useful typology, arguing that classes
should be mutually exclusive, exhaustive, relevant to
practice and pragmatic, with a reasonable number of
classifications. Based on degrees of predictability
and manageability, respectively, he develops a typol-
ogy that identifies conventional, unexpected, intrac-
table and fundamental crises. However, he concludes
that, ‘it is very difficult to allocate all types of pos-
sible crises to a manageable number of mutually
exclusive classes’ (Gundel 2005, p. 108), and the
utility of his proposed typology is unclear.
Hannah et al. (2009, p. 899) distinguish between
crises, extreme events and extreme contexts. They
note that ‘crisis’ is a term that ‘has been used to
explain relatively mundane contexts’, referring to
‘events spanning from copyright infringement and
malicious rumours to natural disasters’. To qualify as
‘extreme’, they argue, an event must have the poten-
tial to generate unbearable outcomes, and overwhelm
an organization’s resources. An ‘extreme context’ is
defined as ‘an environment where one or more
extreme events are occurring or are likely to occur
that may exceed the organization’s capacity to
prevent and result in an extensive and intolerable
magnitude of physical, psychological, or material
consequences to – or in close physical or psycho-
social proximity to – organization members’
International Journal of Management Reviews © 2012 British Academy of Management and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
D.A. Buchanan and D. Denyer
(Hannah et al. 2009, p. 898). The categories into
which events fall thus depend on the definitions and
interpretations of ‘massive’, ‘extensive’, ‘unbear-
able’ and ‘intolerable’ held by those involved.
Vaughan’s (1999, p. 274) analysis of ‘the dark
side’ of organizational behaviour relies on the
concept of ‘routine non-conformity’ or deviance,
which is defined as ‘an event, activity, or circum-
stance that deviates from both formal design goals
and normative standards or expectations, either in
the fact or its occurrence or its consequences, and
produces a suboptimal outcome’ (Vaughan 1999,
p. 273). She identifies three modes of deviance; mis-
takes, misconduct and disaster. Once again, despite
careful definition, those modes are also social
constructs:
mistake, misconduct, and disaster are socially
defined in relation to the norms of some particular
group. Whether an incident or activity producing
an unexpected negative outcome is viewed as
conforming or deviant, whether it is defined as
mistake, misconduct, or disaster will vary by group.
(Vaughan 1999, p. 283)
Mistakes are characterized by acts of omission or
commission, whereas misconduct involves the viola-
tion of rules and regulations; both can cause harm.
Disasters involve physical, cultural and emotional
events that incur social loss, ‘often possessing a dra-
matic quality that damages the fabric of social life.
For an accident to be defined as a disaster, the acci-
dent would need to be large-scale, unusually costly,
unusually public, unusually unexpected, or some
combination’ (Vaughan 1999, p. 292). ‘Unusually’ is
another term open to multiple interpretations.
James et al. (2011) use the terms ‘crisis events’,
‘business crises’, ‘extreme negative events’ and
‘extreme or deviant events’ synonymously, arguing
that it is necessary to differentiate ‘true crises’ from
mere ‘business problems’. Based on Hermann (1963),
they define a business crisis as an event with three
characteristics: significant threat, short decision time
and an element of surprise. But they then argue that
surprise and short time horizon may have no effect on
decision processes. They further define business crisis
as ‘a strategic issue that will likely lead to a negative
outcome unless corrective action is taken’ (James
et al. 2011, p. 461). However, they also emphasize the
role of perception in determining whether or not an
incident is defined as a threat or a crisis, depending on
perceived importance, immediacy, and uncertainty.
© 2012 The Authors
Researching Tomorrow’s Crisis
James et al. (2011) also review typologies based
on crisis origin, stakeholders affected, crisis resolu-
tion strategies, preventative measures and socio-
technical complexity. However, it is difficult to see
how these typologies can offer reference points and
decision guides, concerning how threats develop,
how stakeholders will be affected, and the develop-
ment of crisis-management responses. Their discus-
sion relies on positivist epistemology:
[P]art of the utility of typologies is their ability to
use underlying variables to discover relationships.
By combining variables considered theoretically
interesting, the resultant typology provides schol-
ars with an opportunity to make general state-
ments about classes of social phenomena. [. . .]
Moreover, the ability to understand the underlying
variables related to crisis, and whether or how
those variables are related, is especially important
as the nature of business and the reality of the
global organizational context diversifies. Unfortu-
nately, this contextual reality makes creating sus-
tainable crisis typologies difficult. (James et al.
2011, p. 469)
The possibility of laboratory experimental research
is also discussed. While not capturing the intensity of
crises, and accepting constraints on inflicting pain,
anxiety and other emotions, laboratory studies ‘do
offer the potential benefit of being able to establish
the causal relationships of the phenomena’ (James
et al. 2011, p. 481). The assumption that crises are
amenable to positivist variance-based research and
theoretical understanding is debatable (Mohr 1982).
Constructs derived from crisis research tend to be
relational in as much as they focus on events that
are multidimensional, temporally and contextually
embedded and spanning multiple levels of ana-
lysis (Langley 1999; Suddaby; 2012; Van de Ven
1992).
The ‘ideal type’ event sequence
An alternative approach to characterizing this cat-
egory of phenomenon lies with the event sequence
that crises and other similar incidents typically
follow. Research suggests that many extreme events
proceed through broadly comparable phases (e.g.
Pearson and Mitroff 1993): warning signs, incuba-
tion period, precipitating event, rescue and salvage,
and ‘cultural readjustment’ (Turner 1976, p. 378).
James and Wooten (2005) identify five similar
© 2012 The Authors
International Journal of Management Reviews © 2012 British Academy of Management and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
209
phases: signal detection, preparation and prevention,
containment and damage control, business recovery,
and learning. The weight of research and commen-
tary lies with the pre-crisis, event and crisis-
management phases, and to some extent learning.
‘Cultural readjustment’ – implementing lessons
learned – has received less attention. It is thus appro-
priate to ‘unpack’ that phase, identifying the proc-
esses of investigation, organizational learning, and
implementing inquiry recommendations. This sug-
gests a six-phase event sequence:
1. pre-crisis or incubation
2. event
3. crisis response management
4. investigation
5. organizational learning
6. implementation.
This is an ‘ideal type’ event sequence. These are ‘not
“phases” in the sense of a predictable sequential
process but, simply, a way of structuring the descrip-
tion of events’ (Langley 1999, p. 703). Not all inci-
dents unfold at the same pace; James and Wooten
(2005) distinguish between sudden and smouldering
crises. Some events do not trigger an investigation;
the Mount Everest climbing disaster in 1996 led to
no hearings or inquiries (Kayes 2004). This sequence
is thus a benchmark with which events can be com-
pared. Departures from this ideal sequence may be
interesting and challenging to explain. Why, for
example, are some incidents subject to multiple
investigations, while others invite none? Why are the
findings from inquiries sometimes implemented
without problems, and in other cases ignored? The
structure of this sequence also has methodological
implications. As the following account shows, most
researchers focus on a ‘slice’ of the timeline, with
few studies adopting an ‘incubation to implementa-
tion’ perspective.
Pre-crisis, emergency planning, risk management,
resilience, safety (Table 1)
Research has identified the ‘incubation period’
(Turner and Pidgeon 1997) during which combina-
tions of ‘slow moving causes’, including cumulative
and threshold effects, and outcomes from past events
contribute to the next incident and outcomes (Pierson
2003). Reason (1997) notes the ‘resident pathogens’
that lie dormant, becoming problematic only when
conditions give them a role in events. From an
210 D.A. Buchanan and D. Denyer

Table 1. Pre-crisis, emergency planning, risk management, Table 2. Extreme event studies
resilience, and safety
Illustrative sources Concepts, issues, findings
Illustrative sources Concepts, issues, findings
Weick (1993) Sense-making
Pre-crisis research Vaughan (1996) Routine nonconformity,
Turner and Pidgeon (1997) Antecedents, incubation period organizational deviance
Reason (1997, 2008) Resident pathogens Perrow (1999) Normal accidents, interactive
Pierson (2003) Slow-moving causes, cumulative and complexity
threshold effects Snook (2000) Practical drift
Collinson (1999) Antecedents, contributing factors, Stein (2004) Critical period, realistic anxiety,
defensive practices decision-making
Vaughan (1999) Routine nonconformity, deviance, Chikudate (2009) Safety culture can contribute to
the dark side accidents
Risk and emergency management Madsen and Desai (2010) Experience, failure, success,
Herzog (2007) Mitigation, planning, management, performance
response, recovery Edmondson (2011) Spectrum of reasons for failure
Sementelli (2007) Atheoretical heuristics, ad hoc
classifications
Gardner (2008) Public perceptions of risk
Hubbard (2009) Quantitative risk assessment
McGraw et al. (2011) Actual risk, anticipation of blame
et al. 2010). However, these perspectives demand
Resilience, reliability, safety culture sustained and potentially costly organization-wide
Hollnagel et al. (2006) Resilience engineering
Weick and Sutcliffe (2007) High-reliability organization
programmes (Weick and Sutcliffe 2007), which may
Donaldson (2000) Safety culture not be appropriate, attractive or financially viable for
Leveson et al. (2009) Systems approach many organizations.
Vogus et al. (2010) Enabling, enacting, elaborating Research at this stage in the event sequence thus
safety culture highlights the extended timeframes over which
extreme events can unfold. Crisis researchers have
thus been sensitive to the temporal structure of
extreme events, and to less obvious ‘slow moving
analysis of the collapse of Enron, concluding that causes’. These requirements are methodologically
leaders’ personal histories, and relationships with challenging; information about past events may be
authority, contribute to disastrous decisions, Stein lost, and research must rely on partial or distorted
(2007) suggests that such studies must cover lengthy memories, or on selective documentary sources.
timelines. Planning for an anticipated future event raises issues
Emergency planning has generated its own termi- similar to those arising when implementing change
nology; Blanchard (2008) provides a 1300 page glos- after an event, but there seems to be little com-
sary. The emphasis here is with practice, and with the mentary on these issues. The parallels between
mitigation, planning, management, response and emergency pre-planning and post-event change thus
recovery sequence. A key criticism of this preoccu- deserve closer investigation, with regard to the
pation with practice concerns the comparative lack drivers of, and barriers to action in these paradoxi-
of theory development, which, in turn, inhibits cally comparable situations.
experience-based learning and the development of
new strategies (Herzog 2007; Sementelli 2007). Risk
Extreme event studies (Table 2)
management is also an action-oriented field, focused
on techniques (Hubbard 2009) and on perceptions of Table 2 includes typical examples of studies of
risk (Gardner 2008; McGraw et al. 2011; Petts et al. extreme events, their nature, causes and conse-
2001). quences. The roots of disaster in routine noncon-
Can extreme events be avoided, or detected and formity and organizational deviance are explored in
addressed more promptly? This is the stance of resil- Vaughan’s (1996) analysis of NASA’s decision to
ience engineering (Hollnagel et al. 2006), high- launch the shuttle Challenger. Perrow’s (1999) study
reliability organization (Weick and Roberts 2003; of ‘normal accidents’ involving nuclear power,
Weick and Sutcliffe 2007) and safety culture advo- petrochemicals, air and marine transport, and dams
cates (Donaldson 2000; Leveson et al. 2009; Vogus led to the concept of interactive complexity. The

© 2012 The Authors

International Journal of Management Reviews © 2012 British Academy of Management and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Researching Tomorrow’s Crisis
accidental shoot-down of friendly helicopters by US
fighter planes over Iraq led Snook (2000) to the
concept of practical drift, in a multi-level processual
analysis that considers how individual, team, organ-
izational and contextual factors contributed to this
event. Using information in the public domain,
Chikudate (2009) analyses a rail crash in Japan that
killed over 100 people, where blame was attributed to
an inattentive driver, physical conditions, the social
environment on the train and a ‘safety culture’ that
contributed to the crash by discouraging staff from
reporting mistakes.
Most of these examples rely on studies of unique
or ‘outlier’ events. Pettigrew (1990) argues that case
selection based on atypical examples offers more
potential for learning. However, single cases and
small-n samples are still viewed with suspicion by
many researchers and journal editors (Eisenhardt and
Graebner 2007). The accounts cited here emphasize
the need for multi-level, socio-technical explanations
for extreme events, and such modes of reasoning
have become central in accident modelling (Qureshi
2008; Rasmussen 1997; Reason 2000). Finally, while
failures are normally considered undesirable, Brock-
ner and James (2008) note that crises can generate
individual and organizational opportunities, if those
involved are disposed to perceive events in that light.
Edmondson (2011) argues that, while some failures
may be blameworthy (deliberate violations), others
are praiseworthy (experimenting, testing ideas).
However, there are few studies of ‘positive crises’ or
‘praiseworthy failures’, and these are intriguing and
significant gaps in the research agenda.
Crisis response management (Table 3)
The literature of emergency response, containment
and damage limitation is again mainly practitioner
focused, and the production of guidelines, plans and
protocols has become a ‘cottage industry’ (Millar
and Heath 2003). Research in this area typically
examines crisis response as a case study (Lalonde
2007), generating lessons learned and perspectives
on response effectiveness (Mitroff and Pearson
1993). Studies have also focused on ‘the four Cs’ of
emergency management: communication, coordina-
tion, control and the cognitive processes of risk
detection, recognition and interpretation that initiate
the emergency response process (Comfort 2007). A
number of conceptual papers have made an impact in
this field. These offer frameworks for understanding
crisis response (Pearson and Clair 1998; Shrivastava
© 2012 The Authors
International Journal of Management Reviews © 2012 British Academy of Management and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
211
Table 3. Crisis response management
Illustrative sources Concepts, issues, findings
Pearson and Clair (1998) Psychological, social–political,
and technological–structural
aspects of crisis
Comfort (2007) Communication, coordination,
control and cognition in crises
Smith and Elliott (2006) Understanding and modelling
crisis, the practice of crisis
management
Weick and Sutcliffe (2007) Managing the unexpected,
anticipation versus
commitment
Pauchant and Mitroff (1992) Crisis-prone versus
crisis-prepared organizations
Elliott et al. (2010) Managing blame and resentment
Dezenhall and Weber (2007) Public relations, politics of crisis
management
Hannah et al. (2009) Leadership in extreme contexts
1993), syntheses of prior work (Pauchant and
Douville 1993; Quarantelli 1988) and compilations
of seminal contributions (Smith and Elliott 2006).
Crisis response management often involves
dealing with ‘wicked problems’ (Stubbart 1987), as
there is often a high degree of uncertainty (Weick
and Sutcliffe 2007), divergence in crisis per-
ception (Penrose 2000), communication challenges
(Argenti 2002), issues of public relations and politics
(Dezenhall and Weber 2007), blame allocation and
resentment (Elliott et al. 2010), time pressure created
by a sense of urgency (Kotter 2008), and the fact that
‘action that is instrumental to understanding the
crisis often intensifies the crisis’ (Weick 1988, p.
305). This has led some authors to concede that crisis
response management may well be an impossible
task (Boin and ’t Hart, 2003) or difficult to codify.
The literature on crisis response management is
divided on several critical issues. First, while much
of the practitioner literature extols the virtue of
developing crisis response plans and procedures,
critics argue that ‘the mere existence of policies and
procedures may be false signals of preparedness’
(Pearson and Clair 1998, p. 69). Second, some
authors argue that, in crisis situations, decision-
making should be centralized, for example in inci-
dent command systems (Bigley and Roberts 2001),
and in giving leaders far-reaching powers (Finn
1991). However, others argue that decentralization
should be allowed or encouraged (’t Hart et al. 1993)
to people at the ‘sharp end’ (Flin et al. 2008), par-
ticularly those with expertise (Weick and Sutcliffe
212 D.A. Buchanan and D. Denyer

2007), since flexibility (Turner 1994), intuition, rec- research, collating information with which to explain
ognition (Zsambok and Klein 1997), improvisation the conditions contributing to particular incidents. As
and bricolage (Weick 1993) can be critical in effec- such, these reports have methodological significance,
tive emergency response. This debate has been as primary and secondary data. In addition, they have
further developed by researchers exploring the roles three features that can affect subsequent phases of the
of leaders in crisis situations (Flin and Yule 2004; event sequence. The first is length. Following the loss
Hannah et al. 2009; Probert and Turnbull James of NASA’s shuttle Columbia in February 2003, the
2011). investigation report ran in six volumes to over 2500
Empirical research in this area has thus relied on pages (CAIB 2003). The two reports into the Deep-
case studies, and commentary has focused on con- water Horizon oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico
ceptual development and debates around best prac- run to just under 1000 pages (National Commission
tice. One key criticism concerns the observation that on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill 2011a,b).
this area is ‘replete with speculation and prescrip- With the tendency towards greater transparency,
tion’ (Pearson and Clair 1998, p. 73). The developing driven in part by the media, a considerable amount of
focus on crisis leadership should thus be informative. further information about this disaster, including
witness statements, is available from the Com-
mission’s website (http://www.oilspillcommission.
Investigation and inquiry (Table 4) gov), making this an even more valuable research
Investigations into extreme events can be pivotal to resource. Long and detailed reports take time to read
understanding what happened and why, to ‘learning and to understand.
lessons’ and to identifying recommendations for A second feature is timing. The CAIB report was
change. Commentary falls into three categories: first, exceptional, published in August 2003, just six
investigation and inquiry reports; second, technical months after the loss of space shuttle Columbia.
accounts of accident investigation methods and cri- More typically, the report into the death of Victoria
tiques of their underpinning assumptions; and third, Climbié in London in 2000 took three years to
studies of the nature, purposes and outcomes of produce (Laming 2003). Delays in producing reports
public inquiries. are again likely to create delays in learning and
implementation.
Investigation reports. Investigation and inquiry A third feature concerns responsibility for
reports may be ‘grey literature’, but they are relevant implementation, which rarely falls to inquiry team
to this review, as they can also be seen as proxy members. Typically, others have to absorb inquiry
conclusions, interpret the implications for practice,
then implement them. Inquiry reports often pro-
vide little guidance concerning the resources and
Table 4. Investigation and inquiry
processes required for implementation. A study of
Illustrative sources Observations the implications of one of Laming’s (2009) recom-
Columbia Accident Loss of NASA shuttle, six volumes, mendations after the death of another child found
Investigation Board (2003) 2500 pages that the referral and assessment processes that he
Price (2002–2005) Murderer Harold Shipman, six advocated would need 2000 extra social workers,
volumes, 2500 pages at a time of recruitment difficulties, and addi-
Laming (2003) Death of eight-year old girl, 400
pages
tional annual costs of £75 million (Holmes et al.
Royal Academy of Ideal approach, avoid ‘scene of 2010).
Engineering (2005) crime’ investigations
Carroll (1998) Root cause seduction, distal and Accident investigation techniques. The use of tech-
proximate factors, fixing versus niques such as root cause and failure modes effects
learning, ‘fixes that fail’
Brown (2000, 2003, 2005) Political and impression
analyses, is beyond the scope of this review.
management roles of public However, while root cause analysis is a powerful and
inquiries widely used tool, it faces criticism (Leveson 2004;
National Commission on the Organization and management Nicolini et al. 2011; Rasmussen 1997). From work in
BP Deepwater Horizon Oil failures; technical errors due to nuclear power and chemicals processing, Carroll
Spill and Offshore Drilling management errors
2011a,b)
(1998) explores the logics driving incident review
teams. He concludes that root cause analysis, by

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International Journal of Management Reviews © 2012 British Academy of Management and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Researching Tomorrow’s Crisis 213

encouraging investigators to focus on a small number Organizational learning (Table 5)

of factors, leads to ‘root cause seduction’. As already
This phase is dominated by an organizational learn-
noted, systemic causes, occurring further back in
ing perspective, and most commentary concerns fail-
time, may be overlooked in analyses that dwell on
ures to learn. Toft and Reynolds (2005) distinguish
immediate and understood causes. In identifying the
between passive learning (identifying lessons) and
attributes of effective investigations, the Royal
active learning (implementing changes), noting that
Academy of Engineering (2005) argues that, ‘the full
the latter does not always follow the former. Clarke
causal chain’ should ideally include every relevant
and Perrow (1996) attribute learning failures to the
issue, reaching as far back in time and as far around
symbolic nature of organizational plans, which are
the incident as reasonably possible. This recommen-
often unrealistically optimistic, particularly in high-
dation is detailed in accident modelling perspectives
technology, high-risk contexts. Carroll (1998, p. 715)
adopting socio-technical systems theoretical posi-
notes the preference for simple and rapid solu-
tions (Qureshi 2008; Rasmussen 1997; Rasmussen
tions that do not address complex interdependent
and Svedung 2000), and appears to be sound meth-
problems.
odological advice for crisis research.
Organizational learning is a political process
shaped by the interpretations and interests of com-
peting stakeholders (Coopey and Burgoyne 2000;
Studies of public inquiries. Following an extreme
Lawrence et al. 2005). Stakeholders protect them-
event, victims seek justice, investigators pursue
selves from scapegoating by producing their own
truth, individuals want to attribute or avoid blame,
event narratives (Smith and Elliott 2007, p. 526).
others pursue litigation. However, establishing facts,
Noting similarities in the underlying causes of many
exploring causality, attributing blame, and prepar-
extreme events, Smith and Elliott (2007) focus on
ing legal action, each involve different processes.
barriers to organizational learning from crisis: rigid
Brown (2003) argues that inquiries are ‘impression-
beliefs and assumptions; communication problems;
managed’ versions of reality, constructed to depo-
denial of expertise; disregard for outsiders; focus on
liticize issues and allay public anxiety. They also
narrowly defined problems; denial of threat; and
provide credible, ‘authoritative’ accounts, ignoring
reluctance to embark on significant culture change.
the existence of competing narratives of such events
Such factors can generate the conditions that precipi-
(Buchanan and Dawson 2007). In producing those
tate crises in the first place. Organizational learning
authoritative accounts, alternative and critical per-
is then presumed to occur in highly charged and
spectives may be silenced. For example, from an
emotive contexts, which is not ideal (Smith and
analysis of the report of the Board of Banking
Elliott 2007, p. 521).
Supervision into the collapse of Barings Bank,
A special issue of Organization Science in 2009
Brown (2005) concludes that this was authored to
focused on learning from extreme events. Beck and
attribute blame to the ‘rogue trader’ Nick Leeson, in
Plowman (2009) argue that ‘rare and unusual events’
order to absolve the Bank of England and the Secu-
create problems of interpretation, and emphasize
rities and Futures Authority of responsibility. From
the role of middle managers in providing divergent
a narrative perspective using semiotic tools, Boudes
and Laroche (2009) analyse seven inquiry reports
into the heatwave in France in 2003 which contrib- Table 5. Organizational learning
uted to around 15,000 deaths. The blame-based
‘typology of plots’ that they derive includes the fate Illustrative sources Concepts, issues, findings
plot (nothing could have been done), the human Toft and Reynolds (2005) Passive and active learning
factor plot (individuals at fault), the bureaucratic Clarke and Perrow (1996) Symbolic, unrealistic plans
hydra plot (organizational inertia, poor manage- Carroll (1998) Simple fixes that fail in complex
settings
ment) and the system collapse plot (human and Lawrence et al. (2005) Learning is a politicized process
organizational failures). In an insightful conclusion, Elliott and Smith (2006) Failures to learn
Elliott and Macpherson (2010, p. 599) note that Smith and Elliott (2007) Multiple barriers to learning and
public inquiries serve two purposes, ‘to aid the change
process of learning and to provide tangible and Beck and Plowman (2009) Problems interpreting rare events
Mahler and Casamayou Learning difficulties in the public
codified evidence of government responding to a (2009) sector
matter of pubic concern’.

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International Journal of Management Reviews © 2012 British Academy of Management and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
214
perspectives to guide the learning process. Lampel
et al. (2009) note the lack of frameworks to inform
research into processes of learning from rare events.
From studies of coal mining disasters in America,
Madsen (2009) concludes that organizations learn to
prevent future disasters through both direct and
vicarious experience. As mentioned earlier, Madsen
and Desai (2010) argue that learning from large fail-
ures can be more significant than learning from small
successes. They also note that learning from failure is
problematic. As failures are often stigmatized, those
involved may refuse to acknowledge failure, fear of
punishment may prevent openness, and ignoring fail-
ures may be an organizational norm. In their analysis
of the Challenger and Columbia shuttle losses,
Mahler and Casamayou (2009) focus on learning,
failure to learn, and unlearning in NASA (see also
Starbuck and Farjoun 2005). They use a three-stage
information processing model of learning – problem
awareness, causal analysis, institutionalization –
concluding (p. 15) that ‘the public sector is a particu-
larly harsh learning environment’, owing to financial
and political pressures.
The organizational learning perspective has thus
exposed the lack of learning from extreme events.
However, it is striking that few researchers have
brought a change management perspective to this
problem; this is a potentially rewarding avenue for
future investigation.
Implementing inquiry recommendations (Table 6)
Active learning (Toft and Reynolds 2005) involves
implementing change after an event. In other words,
a learning perspective alone is inadequate; a comple-
Table 6. Implementing inquiry recommendations
Illustrative sources Concepts, issues, findings
Toft and Reynolds (2005) Passive learning does not always
trigger active learning;
isomorphic learning opportunities
missed
Perrow (2007) Rescue and rebuild rather than
reduce vulnerabilities
Elliott (2009) Policy–practice gap, slow unlearning
Elliott and Macpherson Multiple explanations for failure to
(2010) learn, learning ‘from’ not the
same as learning ‘for’ crisis, more
research needed
Lampel et al. (2009) The learning challenge; more
research needed
International Journal of Management Reviews © 2012 British Academy of Management and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
D.A. Buchanan and D. Denyer
mentary change management perspective is required.
Perrow (2007) is critical of the narrow focus on
‘rescue and rebuild’, which does not consider how to
reduce vulnerabilities. He also notes that the agen-
cies responsible for ‘rescue and rebuild’ after crises
typically have no remit to go further and to recom-
mend – never mind implement – the types of changes
that would prevent or limit the damage from future
events. In their analysis of the recommendations
from public inquiries, Toft and Reynolds (2005)
identify a recurring pattern, with over 80 per cent of
recommendations concerned with organizational,
managerial and process factors, and with the other
20 per cent addressing technical improvements.
However, they also note that the lessons learned and
actions advised in one setting are often disregarded
by other organizations that claim to be different. Toft
and Reynolds (2005) argue that lessons and actions
relevant in one setting can be relevant to settings that
are similar, or isomorphic. Opportunities for isomor-
phic learning, they observe, are typically ignored.
Elliott (2009) argues that the processes leading
from knowledge acquisition, to assimilation, to
translation into new operating norms and practices
are often poorly integrated. He also notes that the
change process is not automatically triggered, but has
to be proactively managed. Elliott (2009, p. 159) thus
recommends, ‘the inclusion of organizational and
change management specialists on inquiry panels as
a means of ensuring that issues around implementa-
tion are considered alongside policy development’.
Another barrier is the combination of ‘slow unlearn-
ing’, or the resilience of existing norms and prac-
tices, and the need for a sustained approach to
change management (Elliott 2009, p. 162). It is
perhaps not surprising that Lampel et al. (2009)
recommend further research in this area.
Conventional guides to change management
advise communicating openly with those to be
affected, and involving them in design and imple-
mentation (Kotter 2008). Following an extreme
event, those involved are more likely to be called
before an investigation as witnesses, with changes
to be decided by a neutral external panel. The
agenda is invariably defensive, designed to prevent
further incidents, rather than progressive, focused
on innovation and growth. Receptiveness to such
change may therefore be low. The sense of urgency
that Kotter emphasizes may be necessary, but it
is clearly not always sufficient to drive change in
extreme contexts. Approaches to the implemen-
tation of change following extreme events thus
© 2012 The Authors
Researching Tomorrow’s Crisis
constitute a major gap in understanding, and in
crisis research.
Managing a crisis can be an exciting personal chal-
lenge. The subsequent implementation of recom-
mendations developed by others is intrinsically less
interesting. From the change agents’ perspective,
post-event implementation may have limited appeal
or career value. This may represent a major barrier to
post-event change, but there appears to be no research
evidence to support this assumption. Studies of
the interests, preferences and biases of change
agents are lacking, but further work in this regard
would contribute to crisis-management research and
to organizational change and development more
broadly.
The implementation stage of the event sequence
thus contains a number of unanswered questions, and
many fresh research opportunities. One key issue
may simply be that studies of this phase in the event
sequence are also of less interest to researchers.
Unconventional methodology
Crisis research displays four methodological proper-
ties considered unconventional in other domains;
the dependence on retrospective designs; means of
acquiring sensitive data; addressing novel ethical
considerations; and establishing the multi-level cau-
sality of extreme events and their consequences.
Retrospective designs
It is difficult for researchers in this field to engage in
real time with the flow of events. Unless the
researcher happens to be in the right place, at the
right moment, studies of extreme events are retro-
spective, although it is possible to overcome this
problem. While an extreme event may appear to
occur rapidly, a full understanding of the immediate
and underlying causes can often cover an extended
period. The problems of retrospective designs are
well known: data loss; faulty memories; perceptions
that change with reflection; biased documentation.
Nevertheless, given the temporal structures of ex-
treme events, researchers are advised to consider the
long term with regard to data collection and expla-
nation. The volume of information that is often
available with regard to extreme events can fre-
quently offset, in part, those retrospective design
limitations.
© 2012 The Authors
International Journal of Management Reviews © 2012 British Academy of Management and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
215
Access to data
As extreme events are often sudden and unexpected,
with potentially controversial causes and sensitive
outcomes, access to informants and other informa-
tion can be problematic. Researchers thus need to
engage practitioners in dialogue through the process
of formulation, theory-building, research design and
problem-solving, and to collaborate with practition-
ers who ‘are willing to push the envelope by allowing
access to seemingly inaccessible research settings’
(Van de Ven 2007, p. 50). For example, Roberts’
pioneering work on high-reliability organizations
was facilitated by Admiral Thomas Mercer, captain
of the nuclear powered aircraft carrier, USS Carl
Vinson. Their relationship helped to overcome issues
of access, including an Act of Congress that prohib-
ited female assignments to naval duty. Roberts
explains how, ‘a navy officer suggested I persist. I did
and spent some part of the next four years at sea with
the Navy’ (Roberts 1998, p. 225). Roberts’ work
demonstrates the importance of developing know-
ledge in the context of application (Tranfield and
Starkey 1998). Perrow’s research also demonstrates
the importance of practitioner collaboration and the
immersion of the researcher in the organizational
context. He had been invited to study the Three Mile
Island nuclear power plant disaster by a government
commissioner (a former student), and he became
absorbed by the investigation:
I went through the transcripts that afternoon and
couldn’t sleep. When I got to sleep, I had the worst
nightmares I’d had since my army days. The testi-
mony of the operators made a profound impression
on me. Here was an enormously, catastrophically
risky technology, and they had no idea what was
going on for some hours. I suddenly realized that I
was in the thick of it, in the very middle of it,
because this was an organizational problem more
than anything else, and that I was an organizational
theorist. (Perrow 1992, pp. 429–430)
The researcher in this area is cast in the roles
of historian and detective, reconstructing event
sequences from difficult-to-access and sometimes
partial and contradictory evidence, often facing more
than one ‘factual’ account. Interviews may be emo-
tionally charged. The recall of traumatized partici-
pants may be impaired. Interviewees may not
cooperate owing to possible disciplinary or legal
action. Some informants may be unavailable, as they
have been suspended, fired, quit, retired or died. Key
216
figures (senior managers, inquiry chairs) may be
inaccessible (for research purposes) until long after
the event. Relevant documents are likely to include
witness statements, incident reports and investiga-
tion findings, which may also include photographs
and drawings. These documents may be cautiously
crafted in the context of possible disciplinary or legal
action, as well as to establish causality, identify
lessons and frame recommendations. Official docu-
ments may be confidential, or have limited circula-
tion, or become available in redacted form after long
delay.
Researchers must also rely on non-traditional data
sources. Perrow’s (1999) accounts rely mainly on
documentary evidence. Snook (2000) lists the
sources for his ‘friendly fire’ case as follows:
[O]fficial government documents, archival records,
interviews, physical artefacts, gun target footage,
videotapes, audio tapes, training records, mainte-
nance records, technical reports, trial transcripts,
AWACS data tapes, internal Department of Defence
(DOD) memoranda, press releases, newspaper clip-
pings, congressional hearings, criminal investiga-
tions, conference briefings, flight records, mishap
reports, personnel records, military flight plans,
oil analyses, medical evaluations, psychological
evaluations, human factors reports, optics reports,
crash site analyses, equipment teardowns, weather
observations, accident site photographs, witness
statements, regulations, directives, maps, communi-
cations logs, intelligence briefings, task force air-
space control orders, pre-mission briefs, flight logs,
lists of corrective actions taken, and DOD fact
sheets. (Snook 2000, pp. 15–16)
Snook also analysed two commercial videos, one
from an Iraqi news team on the scene, and one from
ABC news Prime Time Live. He obtained a copy of
the F-15 gun-sight video footage of the shootdown,
with an audio record from the cockpit of the trail
F-15, and a copy of the video taken by a commercial
camcorder inside the AWACS aircraft supervising
the area at the time (Snook 2000, p. 17). Non-
traditional sources do not just provide colourful,
descriptive accounts, these are also part of the causal
fabric of the sequence of events under investigation.
The incident that Snook studied lasted eight minutes.
Ethical considerations
The study of extreme events raises potentially chal-
lenging ethical issues. Researchers may find them-
selves facing participants who have been shocked
International Journal of Management Reviews © 2012 British Academy of Management and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
D.A. Buchanan and D. Denyer
and traumatized. Interview schedules may encourage
participants to disclose sensitive personal informa-
tion, and responses may be emotionally charged
(guilt, anger, sorrow, anxiety). Participant observa-
tion may encompass those who were not involved in
an event, and/or who do not wish to be observed.
Confidentiality and anonymity will be jeopardized if
an incident has attracted media publicity, making it
impossible to disguise in subsequent publications the
organizations and individuals involved. Researchers
are often likely to meet inconsistencies in accounts,
even among those closely involved in an extreme
event, and may find themselves considering the pub-
lication of material which contradicts the findings of
independent investigations and the views of indivi-
duals who have been interviewed.
The difficulties in addressing these issues may
explain why many studies of ‘high-profile’ incidents
have relied on published sources. Nevertheless, strat-
egies can be developed for handling these concerns.
First, the boundaries of the context in which a
researcher is embedded can be drawn such that most if
not all probable participants can be identified and
consented prior to fieldwork, and in a manner that
allows objections to be raised openly. Second, deals
concerning the feedback of conclusions should
include all organizational members, and not just
senior management. Third, the rights to privacy of
participants must be respected, and refusals to engage
with research must not be pursued. Our own experi-
ence is that most participants welcome the opportu-
nity openly to share and to discuss their views of an
extreme event with neutral researchers. This can be
cathartic, and allows participants to reflect on, struc-
ture and codify their experience in a manner rarely
possible through internal organizational forums.
Fourth, contrasting perspectives can be reported in
a non-evaluative manner, avoiding attributions of
accuracy and inaccuracy, and allowing silenced
voices and alternative versions of events to speak.
Locke and Velamuri (2009) offer guidelines for
feeding research findings back to participating
individuals and organizations. Fifth, if an incident is
already in the public domain, the presence of
researchers asking further questions may be unwel-
come, and perhaps offensive, and reliance on pub-
lished material may be the only way in which to
proceed. In cases where none of these strategies are
appropriate or acceptable, the remaining alternatives
are to abandon the study, or to allow an appropriate
period of time to elapse before attempting to estab-
lish research access.
© 2012 The Authors
Researching Tomorrow’s Crisis
Complex causality
The causality of extreme events usually involves the
combination and interaction of numerous factors, at
different levels of analysis, over time (Qureshi 2008;
Rasmussen 1997). Explanations for extreme events
thus appear to rely on conjunctural causality (Gold-
stone 2003), or configurational or combinatorial
explanations (Plowman et al. 2007). Leveson (2004,
p. 4) argues that, ‘the emphasis in accident analysis
needs to shift from “cause” (which has a limiting,
blame orientation) to understanding accidents in
terms of reasons, i.e. why the events and errors
occurred’. The term ‘conjunctural reasoning’ may be
more appropriate, suggesting a shift away from
linear, reductionist, variance-based causal thinking
that focuses on proximate factors, to one that empha-
sizes systemic factors, combining and interacting
over time, setting the conditions for extreme events
to occur.
Challenges and opportunities
We have focused on the methodological aspects of a
comparatively new and relatively specialized area of
organization and management studies, with idiosyn-
cratic interests and methodological approaches when
compared with more conventional research tradi-
tions. Our review of the literature highlights three
methodological challenges for crisis research: defin-
ing the phenomena of interest, fragmentation and
insular traditions, and unconventional methodology.
These challenges are, of course, not unique to crisis
research.
Despite careful attempts at precision, crisis
researchers have been unable to reach agreement
with regard to defining and classifying the events that
interest them. This is a domain in which realist–
positivist and constructivist–interpretive ontologies
must cohabit, where judgements reached in the
courts of public, media and political opinion must
often take precedence over the theoretical definitions
of researchers. It is interesting to note that some
careful attempts at precise definition ultimately hinge
on local interpretations – on socially constructed
meanings. Sustainable crisis typologies are thus
difficult to establish (James et al. 2011, p. 469).
However, Langley (1999) reminds us that process
studies can still produce constructs that balance
accuracy (comprehensiveness) with simplicity (par-
simony) and generality. In moving the field forward,
researchers also need to take into account the scope
© 2012 The Authors
International Journal of Management Reviews © 2012 British Academy of Management and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
217
conditions of crisis constructs, particularly space,
time and values (Suddaby 2012, p. 347).
Recognizing the temporal structure of crises, it is
appropriate to develop explanatory models based on
system-theoretic processual perspectives, incorpo-
rating notions of slow-moving causes, conjunctural
reasoning, and path dependence. Crises are examples
of phenomena that display temporal structures dif-
ferent from, and more variable in pace, and more
prolonged than, the types of issues that management
and organization studies traditionally explore.
Pierson (2003) notes that social science in general
tends to focus on causal explanations that have short
or rapidly unfolding time horizons, which are not
characteristics of most extreme events. An under-
standing of extreme events has not so far (as far as we
can determine) been approached through the concept
of path dependence which observes that outcomes
are influenced, and may become ‘locked in’, by
earlier conditions, decisions and actions, reinforced
by feedback processes (Sydow et al. 2009). This is a
mode of explanation related to processual perspec-
tives on organizational change that have been influ-
ential since the 1980s (Dawson 2003; Pettigrew et al.
2001). Concepts relating to process, slow-moving
causes, cumulative and threshold effects, conjunc-
tural reasoning and path dependence are closely
related, and potentially apply in other areas of organ-
ization and management studies, such as innovation,
change, projects and programmes, strategy formula-
tion and implementation, mergers and acquisitions,
organization development.
Given that the actions in one phase of the event
sequence lead to changes in the context that will affect
action in subsequent phases, it is surprising to note the
absence of longitudinal studies following the timeline
from the incubation period, through to the implemen-
tation (or not) of subsequent change. Exceptions
include the analysis by Mahler and Casamayou (2009)
of the events preceding, during, and after the Chal-
lenger and Columbia NASA shuttle losses. Elliott
(2009) offers a similar analysis of repeated failures in
child protection in the UK. Beyond the pubic gaze,
Pilbeam and Buchanan (2012) report the success of a
UK hospital in managing an outbreak of the ‘super-
bug’ Clostridium difficile. Most crisis researchers,
however, remain faithful to their preferred segment of
the event sequence.
Extreme events are usually exceptional and sur-
prising, and do not lend themselves readily to known
explanations. The combination of ‘incompleteness,
novelty, counterintuitive implications, puzzlement
218
and fascination’ can be a catalyst for theory-building
(Weick 1992, p. 173). However, theory in this field is
based almost exclusively on idiosyncratic cases, and
on small numbers of similar incidents in the same
sector (such as the NASA shuttle losses). The study
by Madsen and Desai (2010) is an exception.
Acknowledging that the details of each event are
different, theory development relies on the epistemo-
logical assumption that comparative analysis can
identify common issues, themes and patterns. It is
possible to build theory and to generalize from single
cases and small-n studies (Buchanan 2012). Statisti-
cal generalization, extrapolating findings from a
sample to a population, may be problematic; when
sampling extreme event cases, it is not clear what the
wider population is composed of. However, there are
four other modes in which case study findings can be
generalizable.
Moderatum generalizations. Williams (2000, p.
138) describes speculative associations as ‘modera-
tum generalizations’: ‘If characteristics point to
particular structures in one situation, then one can
hypothesize that the existence of such structures in a
further situation will lead to at least some similar
characteristics [. . .] the complexity of these struc-
tures and the possibility of agency to transform them,
means that generalizations can be only moderate
ones’. Eisenhardt (1989) and Langley (1999) claim
that it is possible to identify low-level patterns and
develop generalizations with eight to ten cases.
Naturalistic generalization. Stake (1994, p. 240)
notes that, ‘The reader comes to know some things
told, as if he or she had experienced them. Enduring
meanings come from encounter, and are modified
and reinforced by repeated encounter’. The process
through which we learn from case accounts, and
apply them to our own context, Stake defines as
naturalistic generalization (Lincoln and Guba 1985,
discuss transferability). Readers of advice to prevent
extreme events in one setting may ask: Would those
methods work in my organization, and can I adopt
those behaviours?
Analytical refinement. The findings from case
research often generalize from experience and obser-
vation to theory. Suppose we have a model which
says that, to be successful, change must be imple-
mented in a certain manner. Now we have a case of
an organization that departed from that model, but
was nevertheless successful. We need to revise the
International Journal of Management Reviews © 2012 British Academy of Management and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
D.A. Buchanan and D. Denyer
model. Tsoukas (2009b) refers to this process as ana-
lytical refinement. This relies on the case study being
an example of the phenomenon under investigation.
This does not involve proving or disproving theories,
but broadening our understanding with the accumu-
lation of fresh observations.
Isomorphic learning. The unique circumstances of
extreme events may explain why ‘lessons learned’
from one incident are not applied in comparable set-
tings. As we have seen, however, investigations reveal
similar patterns, technical factors typically out-
weighed by organizational and management issues.
Toft and Reynolds (2005, pp. 66, 72–75) argue that
lessons from one extreme event can be applied in
other settings, through isomorphic learning; event
isomorphism (separate incidents, identical hazards),
cross-organizational isomorphism (different organ-
izations, same sector), common mode isomor-
phism (different sectors, similar processes) and
self-isomorphism (sub-units operate in similar ways).
These modes of generalization are neither discrete
nor mutually exclusive. Isomorphic learning is a
form of naturalistic generalization. Analytical refine-
ment and naturalistic generalization probably apply
to most organization case studies. As crisis research
has demonstrated, these other modes of generaliza-
tion are potentially more powerful, in terms of con-
tributing both to knowledge and to practice, than
traditional statistical generalization.
It appears that qualitative-processual approaches
have been successful in generating fresh insights,
and it would be damaging if the field were to be
drawn into accepting a positivist epistemology (as
James et al. 2011, seem to imply). Crisis researchers
must continue to promote case study methods as
mainstream. An alternative strategy is the prospec-
tive case study design (Bitektine 2008). This involves
first developing theory-based hypotheses concerning
an organizational process – an extreme event – to be
compared at a point in future with observed out-
comes. This review has not identified applications of
this design in this field. However, there are sectors
(e.g. health care, fire and rescue services) where the
high numbers of extreme events make the prospec-
tive case study design a possibility.
Researchers should continue to adopt innovative
combinations of conventional and non-traditional
data sources in constructing event sequence narra-
tives. In understanding extreme events, a combina-
tion of traditional and non-traditional data can be
crucial. Those data sources may be too readily
© 2012 The Authors
Researching Tomorrow’s Crisis
dismissed by researchers with different interests, but
rapidly available press, media and internet informa-
tion not only report events, but also shape their future
direction and the manner in which they are perceived
and assessed.
Other areas of organization and management
studies may benefit from adopting and adapting the
methodological perspectives and practices that have
been developed, by necessity, in this field. We suggest
that this applies to case methods, researcher position-
ing, non-traditional data sources, handling pro-
blematic ethical issues, sensitivity to the temporal
structures of organizational phenomena, multi-level
explanations and modes of linking evidence to prac-
tice. Plowman et al. (2007) offer a rare illustration of
the possibilities. Their study began following an invi-
tation to one of the researchers, from church pastors,
to observe their organization’s decision-making proc-
esses. The embedded researcher then developed a
wider case study of this single organization, generat-
ing fresh insights into strategy and slow-moving
radical change processes, based on traditional and
unconventional information sources (interviews,
documents, newspaper articles, observation in a res-
taurant), using content, timeline and narrative anal-
yses to identify combinations (conjunctures) of
organizational characteristics influencing the out-
comes of interest. Crisis studies have been informed
by ‘mainstream’ organization and management
studies. The latter could, with considerable potential
benefit, exploit the innovations that the former have
developed.
Researching tomorrow’s crisis
From a methodological perspective, in summary, this
review has identified five suggestions for research-
ing tomorrow’s crisis, and for the development of
crisis research, concerning publications strategy,
non-traditional approaches, embedded researcher
designs, incubation to implementation studies, and
reconceptualizations of the phenomena of interest.
Publications strategy
Crisis research is widely perceived to sit outside
‘mainstream’ organization and management studies
(although some crisis researchers would disagree
with that assessment). However, that perception indi-
cates that it may be important for crisis researchers to
consider publishing their work in general organiza-
© 2012 The Authors
International Journal of Management Reviews © 2012 British Academy of Management and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
219
tion and management journals, as well as in the more
specialist crisis and risk management outlets. This
shift in strategy would increase the visibility of crisis
research, expose ‘mainstream’ researchers to the
range of perspectives and methods that have been
developed in this field, and encourage researchers in
other areas to adopt and adapt those non-traditional
approaches. This would also serve as a bridging
mechanism, to strengthen links and facilitate
exchange across the organization and management
studies research community, thus facilitating the
development of more transdiciplinary work.
Advocacy of non-traditional approaches
Crisis research is not alone in seeking to develop
theory from single idiosyncratic cases and small-n
studies. The major advances that have been made in
this field, however, confirm the value of those
research designs and offer supportive illustrations
and powerful arguments for their use in other
domains. Crisis researchers are in a position to dem-
onstrate in a compelling manner the contribution of
those designs and accompanying non-traditional
methods, and in so doing strengthen their claims to
knowledge, while supporting researchers who may
lack the experience and confidence to adapt these
methodological tools to their own work. Case
research is also perceived to sit outside the ‘main-
stream’ (Eisenhardt and Graebner 2007), and crisis
researchers hold convincing evidence with which to
correct that misunderstanding.
Embedded researcher designs
As we have noted, a number of crisis researchers
have collected their data while embedded, in some
manner, in the organizations where extreme events
have occurred. While this may often have been a
strategy of opportunity, it is likely that many organ-
izations would welcome support from embedded
researchers, particularly if the arrangement offered
to generate actionable knowledge that would contrib-
ute to averting extreme events, to the development
of crisis-management strategies, and to post-event
change implementation. Embedded and collabora-
tive designs are significant in the context of recent
debates concerning the declining relevance of
organization and management research (e.g. Pearce
and Huang 2012), and to the currently fashionable
concept of research ‘impact’.
220
Incubation to implementation studies
Based on the typical or ‘ideal’ sequence of events in
which crises are embedded, this review has identified
the relative lack of studies that follow that sequence,
from the initial incubation period, through to the
subsequent implementation of recommendations
from inquiries or investigations. This implies a lon-
gitudinal perspective, for which many researchers
may lack the time and resources. However, given that
many extreme events generate a variety of descrip-
tive and investigative materials, it may often be pos-
sible to construct proxy longitudinal analyses based
on combinations of traditional, documentary and
unconventional sources such as news accounts, tel-
evision documentaries, film, radio broadcasts and
internet sites. ‘Incubation to implementation’ studies
are important because they open up the possibility of
establishing the path dependences that structure the
event sequence, the conditions that contribute to or
impede the implementation of inquiry recommenda-
tions, and the likelihood of further similar events
occurring.
Innovative reconceptualizations
Despite a rich terminology, crisis research is charac-
terized by a lack of agreement on the definitions of
key terms, and by the absence of sustainable typolo-
gies (James et al. 2011). In a field where many of the
extreme events of interest come to belong in this
category through socio-interpretative processes, it is
unlikely that the ‘robust categories’ and ‘sharp dis-
tinctions’ that Suddaby (2012) advocates can be
achieved. Even the scope conditions of constructs
such as ‘crisis’ and ‘disaster’ are difficult to establish
unambiguously, as these rely on a combination of
arbitrary thresholds (Bevere et al. 2011) and socia-
lly constructed interpretations of terms such as
‘unusual’ and ‘unbearable’ (Vaughan, 1999).
Hirsch and Levin (1999) distinguish between theo-
rists who use broad concepts to encompass a diverse
set of phenomena – ‘umbrella advocates’ – and those
who insist on the precise definition of narrow con-
cepts – ‘validity police’. The tensions between these
problem-framing positions, they argue, generate a
productive dialectic, between ‘anything goes’ and
‘theoretical tyranny’, and both perspectives are thus
necessary for advancing understanding. The term
adopted for the purposes of this review, ‘extreme
event’ is an umbrella construct, referring to a
broad category of phenomena which are drawn into a
variant of the event sequence described here. In other
International Journal of Management Reviews © 2012 British Academy of Management and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
D.A. Buchanan and D. Denyer
words, this is a relational, or processual, construct,
which is thus inherently multidimensional and
‘messy’ (Suddaby 2012, p. 351).
Hirsch and Levin (1999) also describe the life
cycle of organizational constructs, from ‘emerging
excitement’ to ‘validity challenge’ to ‘tidying up with
typologies’, leading finally to construct collapse, or a
new synthesis. Recent commentary indicates that
crisis research may have entered the ‘tidy typologies’
phase (Gundel 2005; Hannah et al. 2009; James
et al. 2011). Current classification schemes are based
on event properties such as origin, complexity, stake-
holders and resolution strategies. This review sug-
gests that it may also be appropriate to develop
innovative typologies based, instead, on the essential
characteristics of the event sequence: conditions and
duration of the incubation period, properties of the
event causality and failure modes, speed and impact
of event, response strategies, nature and duration of
consequences, investigative processes and outputs,
and ultimately the fate of recommendations from
investigations and inquiries. Clearly, a critical mass
of ‘incubation to implementation’ studies is a prereq-
uisite for this endeavour, potentially identifying a
number of ideal-typical event sequence profiles.
A processual, event sequence-based approach to
categorizing crises or extreme events may thus gen-
erate insights into the conditions and path depend-
ences in different event structure profiles and
contexts. This, in turn, could strengthen the ability to
predict the probability of an extreme event sequence
leading to substantive and sustained change. Finally,
this may suggest managed interventions to increase
that probability.
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