IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ororsc/v8y1997i4p404-413.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Dynamic Model of Organizational Decision Making: Chemco Revisited Six Years After Bhopal

Author

Listed:
  • Howard Kunreuther

    (Center for Risk Management and Decision Processes, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104)

  • Edward H. Bowman

    (Reginald H. Jones Center for Management Policy, Strategy and Organization, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104)

Abstract

The authors develop a dynamic model of organization decision making that is motivated by the decision-making process at a multinational chemical firm, given the pseudonym Chemco, that they visited shortly after the Union Carbide explosion in Bhopal, India, and again six years later. Two major decisions were taken by Chemco that could be attributed in large part to the Bhopal disaster: the divestiture of one of its plants and the sale of a business. An analysis of those actions by Chemco underscores the importance of reference points and constraints in influencing organizational choices.

Suggested Citation

  • Howard Kunreuther & Edward H. Bowman, 1997. "A Dynamic Model of Organizational Decision Making: Chemco Revisited Six Years After Bhopal," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 8(4), pages 404-413, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:8:y:1997:i:4:p:404-413
    DOI: 10.1287/orsc.8.4.404
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/orsc.8.4.404
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/orsc.8.4.404?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
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Fathallah, Ramzi & Branzei, Oana & Schaan, Jean-Louis, 2018. "No place like home? How EMNCs from hyper turbulent contexts internationalize by sequentially arbitraging rents, values, and scales abroad," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 53(5), pages 620-631.
    2. Bruce Kogut & Howard Kunreuther, 2001. "Introduction to Focused Issue: Risk, Managers, and Options in Organizations," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 12(5), pages 579-581, October.
    3. David Maslach & Oana Branzei & Claus Rerup & Mark J. Zbaracki, 2018. "Noise as Signal in Learning from Rare Events," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(2), pages 225-246, April.
    4. Sheen S. Levine & Michael J. Prietula & Ann Majchrzak, 2022. "Advice in Crisis: Principles of Organizational and Entrepreneurial Resilience," Journal of Organization Design, Springer;Organizational Design Community, vol. 11(4), pages 145-168, December.

    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:8:y:1997:i:4:p:404-413. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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.