Temporary, Emergent Interorganizational Collaboration in Unexpected Circumstances: A Study of the Columbia Space Shuttle Response Effort

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Beck, Tammy E.; Plowman, Donde Ashmos
• 署名单位: University of North Carolina; University of North Carolina Charlotte; University of Nebraska System; University of Nebraska Lincoln
• 刊物名称: ORGANIZATION SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1047-7039
• DOI: 10.1287/orsc.2013.0888
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 1234-1252
• 关键词: QUALITATIVE RESEARCH; complex adaptive systems; INTERORGANIZATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS

摘要

In an inductive case study of the Columbia space shuttle disaster response effort, we use observations, archival records, and in-depth interviews with representatives from several responding agencies to explore factors that facilitated this interorganizational collaboration. The Columbia response effort defies conventional theories of collaboration. Relative strangers from dissimilar agencies, without a designated leader or existing structure, quickly collaborated across organizational boundaries on an unprecedented and complex undertaking. We explain how four organizing actions enabled self-organizing and the two-staged development of trust and identity, ultimately leading to a successful unplanned collaboration. We rely on tenets of complexity theory to orient our case study and to propose a grounded theory of temporary, emergent interorganizational collaboration.