Thomas W. Milburn

Organizational Crisis. Part I: Definition and Conceptualization

Initially, a two part definition of organizational crisis is presented, related to their significance and prevalence and reflecting either (a) opportunities to meet organizational goals or (b) demands or threats that may prevent an organization from attaining its goals or limiting its abilities to meet them and (c) which the organization seeks to resolve because outcome stakes are important and the ideal resolution strategy uncertain. Thus, crises have both objective and subjective aspects. A number of elements of the definition are discussed in terms of their implications for organizations and their subsystems. Finally, three major aspects of our conceptualization are described in terms of empirical examples from our investigations followed by a typology of eight kinds of organizational crisis based upon three dimensions, (1) control, (2) opportunity-threat, and (3) organizational susceptibility and vulnerability to crisis. Part II will deal with strategies and responses to crisis.

Organizational Crisis. Part II: Strategies and Responses

The ways organizations respond to crisis can be described in terms of the level of the individual-short, intermediate, and long term-and the level of the organization as a whole-also short, intermediate, and long range. Different kinds of response have disparate implications for organizational effectiveness and survival. Some of the most effective responses can be counterintuitive and are not especially likely to occur, e.g., decentralization in crisis situations. Based upon these considerations and empirical examples of them, several examples of both preventive and management action strategies are described as means to organizational survival and growth.

Psychology, negotiation, and peace

Abstract For a number of years psychologists and other behavioral scientists have contributed concepts and research methods for investigating the nature of conflict and ways of dealing with conflicts in more constructive and less costly ways. Since the end of World War II and throughout the Cold War, psychologists have focused increasingly on concepts that can be applied to international as well as interpersonal conflicts. Conflicts and decision making have both positive and negative aspects. Conflicts can prove costly, as in destructive wars, even though they sometimes provide social and personal benefits such as inventions and new social structures. In some settings, conflicts grow, sometimes with explosive force. Psychologists have developed tactics and strategies to describe and to deal with the processes involved, the escalation of conflicts into violence, and their deescalation through negotiation and mediation into mutually safisafactory resolution. Negotiation can prove to be an effective way to stop or resolve disputes to the mutual satisfaction of parties by means of discussion and reciprocal concessions between adversaries. Psychologists have studied such concepts as rationality, framing, distrust and trust, all as they relate to negotiation, mediation, and related forms of conflict resolution. Rationality, which can contribute to conflict resolution, comes in different forms, from optimizing to “satisficing.” Framing problems influences decisions. Trust and distrust can be crucial factors in the resolution of conflicts. Effective resolution of conflicts can contribute to the production and maintenance of peace and thus to improved quality of life.