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Prosaic Organizational Failure

Rutgers University

CHARLES PERROW

Yale University

We use the case of the now-dead Shoreham Nuclear Power Station to pose some questions, and a few answers, about organizational failure. The analysis centers on the symbolism of organizational plans, specifically how organizations use plans to justify increasingly complex systems to themselves and to others. That such plans are based on sparse or nonexistent experience, and that they are often wildly unrealistic, suggests some reasons why high-technology, high-risk systems do not foster organizational learning.

American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 39, No. 8, 1040-1056 (1996)
DOI: 10.1177/0002764296039008008


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