IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ororsc/v25y2014i4p1234-1252.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

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

Author

Listed:
  • Tammy E. Beck

    (Department of Management, Belk College of Business, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, North Carolina 28223)

  • Donde Ashmos Plowman

    (Department of Management, College of Business Administration, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska 68588)

Abstract

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Tammy E. Beck & Donde Ashmos Plowman, 2014. "Temporary, Emergent Interorganizational Collaboration in Unexpected Circumstances: A Study of the Columbia Space Shuttle Response Effort," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(4), pages 1234-1252, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:25:y:2014:i:4:p:1234-1252
    DOI: 10.1287/orsc.2013.0888
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2013.0888
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/orsc.2013.0888?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Philip Anderson & Alan Meyer & Kathleen Eisenhardt & Kathleen Carley & Andrew Pettigrew, 1999. "Introduction to the Special Issue: Applications of Complexity Theory to Organization Science," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 10(3), pages 233-236, June.
    2. Deborah Dougherty & Danielle D. Dunne, 2011. "Organizing Ecologies of Complex Innovation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(5), pages 1214-1223, October.
    3. Todd H. Chiles & Alan D. Meyer & Thomas J. Hench, 2004. "Organizational Emergence: The Origin and Transformation of Branson, Missouri's Musical Theaters," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 15(5), pages 499-519, October.
    4. Cynthia Hardy & Nelson Phillips & Thomas B. Lawrence, 2003. "Resources, Knowledge and Influence: The Organizational Effects of Interorganizational Collaboration," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(2), pages 321-347, March.
    5. James G. March & Lee S. Sproull & Michal Tamuz, 1991. "Learning from Samples of One or Fewer," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 2(1), pages 1-13, February.
    6. Yves L. Doz & Paul M. Olk & Peter Smith Ring, 2000. "Formation processes of R&D consortia: which path to take? Where does it lead?," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(3), pages 239-266, March.
    7. Tammy E. Beck & Donde Ashmos Plowman, 2009. "Experiencing Rare and Unusual Events Richly: The Role of Middle Managers in Animating and Guiding Organizational Interpretation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(5), pages 909-924, October.
    8. Philip Anderson, 1999. "Perspective: Complexity Theory and Organization Science," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 10(3), pages 216-232, June.
    9. Bill McEvily, 2011. "Reorganizing the Boundaries of Trust: From Discrete Alternatives to Hybrid Forms," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(5), pages 1266-1276, October.
    10. Cynthia Hardy & Nelson Phillips, 1998. "Strategies of Engagement: Lessons from the Critical Examination of Collaboration and Conflict in an Interorganizational Domain," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 9(2), pages 217-230, April.
    11. Ann Majchrzak & Sirkka L. Jarvenpaa & Andrea B. Hollingshead, 2007. "Coordinating Expertise Among Emergent Groups Responding to Disasters," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 18(1), pages 147-161, February.
    12. Blake E. Ashforth & Kristie M. Rogers & Kevin G. Corley, 2011. "Identity in Organizations: Exploring Cross-Level Dynamics," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(5), pages 1144-1156, October.
    13. James B. Thomas & Stephanie Watts Sussman & John C. Henderson, 2001. "Understanding “Strategic Learning”: Linking Organizational Learning, Knowledge Management, and Sensemaking," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 12(3), pages 331-345, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pina e Cunha, Miguel & Rego, Arménio & Clegg, Stewart & Lindsay, Greg, 2015. "The dialectics of serendipity," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 9-18.
    2. Gwendolyn K. Lee & Joseph Lampel & Zur Shapira, 2020. "After the Storm Has Passed: Translating Crisis Experience into Useful Knowledge," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(4), pages 1037-1051, July.
    3. Hasan Muhammad Baniamin, 2021. "Citizens’ Initiatives for Crisis Management and the Use of Social Media: An Analysis of COVID-19 Crisis in Bangladesh," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 21(4), pages 797-813, December.
    4. Gil, Nuno & Pinto, Jeffrey K., 2018. "Polycentric organizing and performance: A contingency model and evidence from megaproject planning in the UK," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(4), pages 717-734.
    5. Liisa Välikangas & Marijane Luistro-Jonsson & Sirkka L. Jarvenpaa, 2022. "Health crisis and the EU’s HERA: amplifying partial organizing with resourcing for stability, agility, and evolvability," Journal of Organization Design, Springer;Organizational Design Community, vol. 11(4), pages 169-187, December.
    6. Jennifer van den Berg & Alex A. Alblas & Pascale M. Le Blanc & A. Georges L. Romme, 2022. "Designing for Resilience: How Dutch Maternity Care Collaborations Anticipate, Adapt, and Thrive during a Pandemic," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-32, November.
    7. Sylvain Lenfle & Jonas Söderlund, 2019. "Large-Scale Innovative Projects as Temporary Trading Zones: Toward an Interlanguage Theory," Post-Print hal-02390158, HAL.
    8. Ahokangas, Petri & Haapanen, Lauri & Golgeci, Ismail & Arslan, Ahmad & Khan, Zaheer & Kontkanen, Minnie, 2022. "Knowledge sharing dynamics in international subcontracting arrangements: The case of Finnish high-tech SMEs," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 28(1).
    9. Robert Larruina & Kees Boersma & Elena Ponzoni, 2019. "Responding to the Dutch Asylum Crisis: Implications for Collaborative Work between Civil Society and Governmental Organizations," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 7(2), pages 53-63.
    10. Pamela R. Haunschild & Francisco Polidoro & David Chandler, 2015. "Organizational Oscillation Between Learning and Forgetting: The Dual Role of Serious Errors," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(6), pages 1682-1701, December.
    11. Anne M. Quarshie & Rudolf Leuschner, 2020. "Interorganizational Interaction in Disaster Response Networks: A Government Perspective," Journal of Supply Chain Management, Institute for Supply Management, vol. 56(3), pages 3-25, July.
    12. Standaert, Willem & Muylle, Steve & Basu, Amit, 2022. "Business meetings in a postpandemic world: When and how to meet virtually," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 267-275.
    13. de Graaff, Bert & Huizenga, Sabrina & van de Bovenkamp, Hester & Bal, Roland, 2023. "Framing the pandemic: Multiplying “crises” in Dutch healthcare governance during the emerging COVID-19 pandemic," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 328(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bill McKelvey & Benyamin B. Lichtenstein & Pierpaolo Andriani, 2012. "When organisations and ecosystems interact: toward a law of requisite fractality in firms," International Journal of Complexity in Leadership and Management, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 2(1/2), pages 104-136.
    2. Anita Williams Woolley & Erica Fuchs, 2011. "PERSPECTIVE---Collective Intelligence in the Organization of Science," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(5), pages 1359-1367, October.
    3. Tamara Galkina & Irina Atkova, 2020. "Effectual Networks as Complex Adaptive Systems: Exploring Dynamic and Structural Factors of Emergence," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 44(5), pages 964-995, September.
    4. Tammy E. Beck & Donde Ashmos Plowman, 2009. "Experiencing Rare and Unusual Events Richly: The Role of Middle Managers in Animating and Guiding Organizational Interpretation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(5), pages 909-924, October.
    5. Swan, Jacky & Goussevskaia, Anna & Newell, Sue & Robertson, Maxine & Bresnen, Mike & Obembe, Ademola, 2007. "Modes of organizing biomedical innovation in the UK and US and the role of integrative and relational capabilities," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 529-547, May.
    6. Ellinas, Christos & Allan, Neil & Johansson, Anders, 2016. "Project systemic risk: Application examples of a network model," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 182(C), pages 50-62.
    7. Brice Dattée & Oliver Alexy & Erkko Autio, 2018. "Maneuvering in Poor Visibility : How Firms Play the Ecosystem Game when Uncertainty is High," Post-Print hal-02276702, HAL.
    8. Deborah Dougherty & Danielle D. Dunne, 2011. "Organizing Ecologies of Complex Innovation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(5), pages 1214-1223, October.
    9. André Luis Silva & Márcia de Freitas Duarte & Flávia Plutarco, 2020. "Organizational Rare Events: Theory and Research Practice," Schmalenbach Business Review, Springer;Schmalenbach-Gesellschaft, vol. 72(4), pages 635-659, October.
    10. Omid Omidvar & Roman Kislov, 2016. "R&D Consortia As Boundary Organisations: Misalignment And Asymmetry Of Boundary Management," International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 20(02), pages 1-24, February.
    11. Jonathan Levie & Benyamin B. Lichtenstein, 2010. "A Terminal Assessment of Stages Theory: Introducing a Dynamic States Approach to Entrepreneurship," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 34(2), pages 317-350, March.
    12. Robyn Thomas & Leisa D. Sargent & Cynthia Hardy, 2011. "Managing Organizational Change: Negotiating Meaning and Power-Resistance Relations," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(1), pages 22-41, February.
    13. Joseph Lampel & Jamal Shamsie & Zur Shapira, 2009. "Experiencing the Improbable: Rare Events and Organizational Learning," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(5), pages 835-845, October.
    14. Alan D. Meyer & Vibha Gaba & Kenneth A. Colwell, 2005. "Organizing Far from Equilibrium: Nonlinear Change in Organizational Fields," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 16(5), pages 456-473, October.
    15. Elodie Gardet & Caroline Danièle Mothe, 2011. "The dynamics of coordination in innovation networks," Post-Print hal-00919245, HAL.
    16. Arie Y. Lewin & Henk W. Volberda, 1999. "Prolegomena on Coevolution: A Framework for Research on Strategy and New Organizational Forms," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 10(5), pages 519-534, October.
    17. Hongryol Cha & Masaaki Kotabe & Jie Wu, 2023. "Reshaping Internationalization Strategy and Control for Global E-Commerce and Digital Transactions: A Hayekian Perspective," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 63(1), pages 161-192, February.
    18. Salla Laasonen & Martin Fougère & Arno Kourula, 2012. "Dominant Articulations in Academic Business and Society Discourse on NGO–Business Relations: A Critical Assessment," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 109(4), pages 521-545, September.
    19. De Silva, Muthu & Howells, Jeremy & Meyer, Martin, 2018. "Innovation intermediaries and collaboration: Knowledge–based practices and internal value creation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 70-87.
    20. Anselm Schneider & Christopher Wickert & Emilio Marti, 2017. "Reducing Complexity by Creating Complexity: A Systems Theory Perspective on How Organizations Respond to Their Environments," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(2), pages 182-208, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:25:y:2014:i:4:p:1234-1252. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.