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PROPOSAL FOR 2008 AOM PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP
TITLE:
Confronting Risk: Examining its Acceptability, Short Sightedness, Blind
Sightedness, and Prevention.
ABSTRACT:
Errors and mishaps, whether human, system, or natural in origin, generate risk and
uncertainty which organizations confront, manage, and accept. The Institute of
Medicine’s 2000 and 2004 reports on medical errors, for example, set forth generative
dialogues about risk awareness and risk acceptability. The participants of this PDW
examine the error rates, error origins, and risk acceptability of various industry contexts.
Furthermore, we examine how confronting risk forces organizations to self-reflectively
shift questioning from performance and efficiency to reliability and prevention. In
particular, we examine the short sightedness and blind sightedness of risk management in
the hope that we can rethink risk acceptability and prevention differently. The PDW
participants would help organizations teach the general principles and abstractions behind
the highly reliable practices developed to manage risk.
Organizer:
Kuo Frank Yu, kuoyu@haas.berkeley.edu
(510) 684-2679
Chairs
Karlene H. Roberts, karlene@haas.berkeley.edu
Karl E. Weick, karlw@umich.edu
William H. Starbuck, starbuck@uoregon.edu
Panelists:
John S. Carroll, jcarroll@mit.edu
Timothy J. Vogus, timothy.vogus@owen.vanderbilt.edu
Tracy A. Thompson, tracyat@u.washington.edu
Claus Rerup, crerup@ivey.uwo.ca
Ian Mitroff, ianmitroff@earthlink.net
James Doug Orton, jamesdouglasorton@gmail.com
Ramanujam, Rangaraj ramanujr@purdue.edu
Daved Van Stralen, DVanStra@llu.edu
Gary Provansal, gprovansal@sbcfire.org
Dwayne Thomas, thomasdc28@earthlink.net
Pete Sarna, pcsarna1@yahoo.com
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Participants: More to be added as more PhD students apply.
Estella H. Gillette, estellagillette@hotmail.com
Febra Johnson, fjohnson@llu.edu
Anne Washington, annew@gwu.edu
Debra Andersen, gramaich@yahoo.com
Jim Holbrook, jholbrook@craftonhills.edu
Primary Sponsor:
OB: Organizational Behavior
Co-Sponsors:
OMT: Organization & Management Theory
HCM: Health Care Management
ODC: Organization Development & Change
ONE: Organizations & the Natural Environment
SIM: Social Issues in Management
CM: Conflict Management
BPS: Business Policy & Strategy
ME: Management Education & Development
PTC: Practice Theme Committee
INTRODUCTION:
Catastrophes from natural, industrial, and technological sources have increased in the
world in recent decades, and deliberate sources such as terrorism further compound the
problem. No end is in sight. Organizations, rather than individuals, are the primary agents
for processing, handling, and producing risk. Enabled by technology and augmented by
size, organizations can increasingly produce harm in shocking magnitude, exemplified by
nuclear power explosions, oil spills, and medical errors. However, organizations can also
do a lot of good to manage risk for similar reasons. Observe how resiliently the Coast
Guard mobilized itself during the strike of Hurricane Katrina!
In response to last year’s academy theme called “Doing Well by Doing good,” we
organized two successful academic symposia--“Complex Organizational DecisionMaking and Large-Scale Crisis Management under Risk” and “Emergent Communication
and Knowledge Creation & Sharing under Risk.” We focused primarily on how
organizations can perform better and more reliably under risk and uncertainty, so they are
doing good by doing no harm. We were elated to observe and participate in several other
risk-related paper sessions and symposia, and would like to address the lack of risk
concerns in the professional development workshops.
We respond to this year’s academy theme called “The Questions We Ask” by involving
the practitioners to generate dialogues, linking theory and practice. Furthermore, we
engage the theme by examining basic questions on risk in ways that are contrary to
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current theoretical paradigms and management practices. We organize the following four
panels in such a way that would simultaneously engage multiple industries from practice
as well as multiple divisions of the academy. In other words, we believe that through
provocation and contention, generative dialogues can surface, new questions get asked,
and creative solutions might surface. In particular, we examine the acceptability, short
sightedness, blind sightedness, and prevention of risk in four short panels.
First, we examine how each industry documents and determines risk acceptability. How
does looking at risk acceptability across industries changes the questions we ask? For
example, we want to understand why the Institute of Medicine’s 1990 and 1994 reports
on Medical errors only led to mild responses from the medical field and the government.
(The reports cited high reliability theory work from organizational behavior to understand
the linking of a medical system.) Every year, more people get killed in hospitals “by
accident” because of medical errors than the number of people killed in car accidents.
This statistic is very troubling, and yet the outrage failed to galvanize the medical
industry. Perhaps we need to better understand cultural and organizational values toward
risk acceptability before we can engage in the dialogue of risk mitigation.
Second, we confront the short sightedness of risk management practices and the lack of
research effort on risk from a long-term perspective. Take global warming as an example.
Scientists have been talking about global warming for years. Only in the past decade has
the true seriousness of the effects of global warming received noteworthy attention.
While wars, the economy, and technology captivated our attention, the issue of global
warming sat on the backburner, slowly but surely becoming a threat to our future. With
temperatures rising every year and debates raging over whether subsequent higher sea
levels and destruction of natural barriers fed disasters such as the Indian Ocean tsunami
and Katrina Hurricane, global warming is an issue that can no longer be denied. Al Gore,
long the subject of everyone’s jokes for years because of his claims on the seriousness of
global warming, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his work on climate change. As
one of the primary emitters of greenhouse gases in the world, the United States is a
frontrunner in this global environmental effort. Similarly, the chemical industry is leading
the discussion on the potential catastrophic risk of cumulating what appear to be shortterm benign practices. This panel will engage in dialogue about how the questions on risk
look very differently when we have foresight.
Third, we tackle the issues of learning from mistakes in organizational cultures where
denial, finger pointing, hiding, and bolstering take place when errors occur. The British
Airways leads in safety practices through the British Airways Safety Information System
(BASIS). It supports the process of investigating possible breaches in safety through an
open reporting culture and routine by encouraging staff to contribute high quality safety
information without fear of recrimination. BASIS is now used by 150 organizations
around the world. This panel engages in dialogues about how government and
organizations can foster free sharing of mistakes as well as encourage owning up to
mistakes through apologies. The panelists would focus on addressing the challenges in
realizing this utopian vision and the ways in which learning from mistakes might be
beneficial when there is a wealth of free information exchange on organizational errors.
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Fourth, we shift the dialogue from controlling risk to preventing risk, and from being
reactive to being proactive. A group of risk researchers have studied organizations that
operate in highly volatile and risky environments and still attain error-free performance;
they call these organizations high reliability organizations (HROs). Assuming a practice
perspective, these researchers identify superb safety practices and build the theories using
grounded theory approach. Operation in an aircraft carrier typifies high reliability
practices, and these practices are now applied in many industries. What characterizes the
practices is their obsession with preventing risk rather than reacting to risk. We desire to
end the workshop on the optimistic note of building the possibility for risk prevention.
Several break out-groups that focus on particular issues will follow each panel’s
dialogues, and a brief debriefing and integrating session will follow each break out
session. We want to make the sessions interactive and allow learning to take place at the
collective level. The PDW chairs, Karlene H. Roberts, Karl Weick and Bill Starbuck, will
rotate playing the panel moderator for panel dialogues and the discussion facilitator for
debriefing. The following are the particulars of the sessions. We are requesting four
hours, preferably in the Sunday afternoon, to avoid being at the same time with the
doctoral consortium. Otherwise, qualified PhD students would not be able to
participate in the break-out groups. In addition, some speakers won’t arrive until
Saturday.
PANELS AND BREAK-OUT GROUPS:
Part 1: Social and Organizational Values toward Risk Acceptability: Challenging
the Normalization of Risk.
Panel Moderator: Karlene H. Roberts (20 Minutes)
Panelists:
Bill Starbuck (Risk Acceptability in Organizations Operating in Extreme Conditions).
Karl Weick (Organizational Culture as a Source of Organizational Reliability.)
Tracy Thompson (Social Network Perspective on Safety Culture.)
David van Stralen (Why the Institute of Medicine Reports Failed to Galvanize?)
Ian Mitroff (Why Are We Asking the Wrong Questions about Risk.)
Break out groups (30 Minutes): We will add more break-out groups depending on the
participants’ interests. PhD students working on risk related dissertations are encouraged
to present in the break out groups and seek help from experts. We will notify various
management programs about this opportunity, and some students have already applied.
They will be listed as “presenters” in the program. Pre-registration is required for
dissertation presenters in order to match expertise and needs.
1. Risk Acceptability Across Industries.
2. Technology and Risk.
3. Organizational Safety Culture and Institutional Environments.
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4. Raise Risk Awareness and Encourage Policy Changes.
5. Ask the Right Questions about Risk.
6. Dissertation(s) under development:
Pat Press, Margaret Gorman & Frances Milliken: "Organizational Silence
Processes in the Virginia Tech Shootings: Macro-institutional Forces with Microinstitutional Consequences."
Facilitator of debriefing: Bill Starbuck (10 Minutes)
Part 2: When Distant Risk Becomes Catastrophic Crisis: Global Warming, Katrina
as Exemplary Short Sightedness of Risk Management.
Panel Moderator: Karl Weick (20 Minutes)
Panelists:
Karlene H. Roberts (Interdisciplinary Research Teams: Lessons from Katrina.)
Gary Provansal (Multiple Fires in Southern California as Simulation for Terrorist Attack)
Claus Rerup (The Gray Zone: Lessons from Near Failures and Partial Failures.)
Ian Mitroff (Challenges in Coping with non-Imminent Dangers.)
Bill Starbuck (Organizational Decision Making Based on Unreliable Data.)
Break-out groups: (30 Minutes)
1. Global Warming.
2. Terrorism and National Security.
3. Chemical Industry.
4. Wildland Fires.
5. Interdisciplinary Research Methods.
6. Dissertation(s) under development:
Robert K. Urian & Bill Hoyle: "Corporate Chemical Safety Investigation Teams
and the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Board."
Anne L. Washington: "Understanding System Representation through
Information Retrieval Behavior in Knowledge-intensive Situations: a Case Study
of the US Congress."
Facilitator of debriefing: Karlene Roberts (10 Minutes)
Part 3: Mea Culpa: Learning from Mistakes through Sharing Data and
Acknowledging Mistakes.
Panel Moderator: (20 Minutes) Bill Starbuck
Panelists:
Karl Weick (Organizational Learning Based on Few Samples.)
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John Carroll (Legal Challenges in Sharing Risk Data.)
Ranga Ramanujam (Learning from Error Reporting Systems.)
Kuo Frank Yu (Apology Rituals as Ways of Encouraging Error Reporting and Learning.)
Timothy Vogus (How Human Resource Practices Affect Mindful Communication.)
Break-out groups: (30 Minutes)
1. Apology Rituals in the Face of Mistakes.
2. Legal Challenges in Reporting Errors.
3. Institutional Challenges in Sharing Data.
4. Human Resource Practices and Safety.
5. Social Issues in Risk Reporting.
6. Dissertation(s) under Development:
Chuck Watson & Dave Schwandt. "Trust-giving Processes in the Context of Law
Enforcement: A Study of Determining Variables of Trust-giving Behaviors."
Edgar Castro & Dave Schwandt: "Organizational Learning in High Reliability
Organizations: Explaining the Emergence, Sustainability, and Decay of PostColumbia Organizational Routines."
Facilitator of debriefing: Karlene Roberts (10 minutes)
Part 4: From Damage Control to Preemptive Strike: Preventive Practices in High
Reliability Organizations and Others.
Panel Moderator: Karl Weick (20 Minutes)
Panelists:
Dwayne Thomas (Suicide in the Military: How Preventions Intervene.)
Karlene H. Roberts (Integrating Theory and Practice In High Reliability Organizations.)
Timothy Vogus (Mindful Processes and Their Effects on Medical Error in Hospital.)
Doug Orton (Socialization Processes of the Extravehicular Activity Team in NASA.)
Break-out groups (25 Minutes):
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
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Integrating Theory and Practice.
Mindfulness in High Reliability Organizations.
Communication Practices Using Complex Technologies.
Prevention Practices in Organizational Change.
Trust-giving Practices in Rigid Hierarchy.
Dissertation (s) under development:
Michael Valerio & Krishna Gajjar: "High Reliability Sensemaking Processes
in U.S. Coast Guard Flight Crews."
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Kip Rollins: "Emergency Room Surgical Team Mindfulness: Toward a
Theory of High Reliability Groups."
Facilitator of debriefing: Bill Starbuck (5 minutes)
CONCLUSION: 10 minutes
Karlene H. Roberts, Karl Weick, and Bill Starbuck will conclude the professional
development workshop by relating the learning of the PDW to the theme of the
conference:
“The Questions We Ask: Rethinking Risk.”
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I, William H. Starbuck, agree to participate in the professional development workshop
(PDW) called “Confronting Risk” for the Academy of Management meeting in Anaheim,
CA from August 8th to 10th, 2008. I do not violate the rule of Three + Three for both the
pre-conference and academic conference periods. My email address is
starbuck@uoregon.edu and my current organizational affiliation is the University of
Oregon.
Name: William H. Starbuck
Date: November 13, 2007
Signature:
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I, Rangaraj Ramanujam, agree to participate in the professional development workshop
(PDW) called “Confronting Risk” for the Academy of Management meeting in Anaheim,
CA from August 8th to 10th, 2008. I do not violate the rule of Three + Three for both the
pre-conference and academic conference periods. My email address is
ramanujr@purdue.eduand my current and past organizational affiliation(s) include:
Purdue University.
Date: November 13, 2007
Ranga Ramanujam
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