Organizational Resilience: How Learning Sustains Organizations in Crisis, Disaster, and Breakdown

by D. Christopher Kayes

Overview

In the age of knowledge, organizations survive and thrive only when they learn. All too often, when organizations are confronted with novel or changing situations, the process of learning breaks down and the result is catastrophic. In Organizational Resilience: How Learning Sustains Organizations in Crisis, Disaster, and Breakdown, D. Christopher Kayes explains why all organizational leaders should be concerned about learning and the dire consequences that may ensue if they are not.

Kayes draws on the foundational ideas of philosopher John Dewey, then connects this philosophy to contemporary studies on learning, management, and organizations. Through a wide range of examples from the realms of government, finance, engineering, healthcare, and commercial air travel, he describes how learning can help organizations weather crises and outlines specific ways that leaders can learn from their experience.

The first comprehensive review of how learning sustains organizations in challenging times, Organizational Resilience is essential reading for crisis managers, disaster-recovery team leaders, continuity-of-operations planning professionals, emergency-management professionals, and leaders at all levels who want their organizations to thrive.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199791057
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	04/20/2015
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

D. Christopher Kayes is Professor of Management at the George Washington University School of Business. During his tenure as Interim Dean of the School of Business, he led the organization's financial turnaround. He is the author and coauthor of several books.

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction: Learning as the Source of Resilience

Part I: Experience as the Source of Learning in Organizations
Chapter 1: Learning from Experience
Chapter 2: The Structure of Learning in Organizations
Chapter 3: Learning versus Performance in the Air France Flight 447 Disaster

Part II: The Breakdown of Learning
Chapter 4: A Review of Failure in Organizations
Chapter 5: From Failure to the Breakdown of Learning
Chapter 6: How Optimism and Positive Thinking Can Limit Learning
Chapter 7: Goal Setting as an Unlikely Threat to Learning
Chapter 8: Experience and Decision Making

Part III: Building Resilience through Learning
Chapter 9: Case Study: Learning From the Search for Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq
Chapter 10: Revisiting the Universal Dilemma of Learning in Policy, Government, and Organizational Culture
Chapter 11: Building Learning in Organizations

References
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Kayes has been a long-time, articulate student of experiential learning and of dramatic instances when such learning falls short. Those strengths are evident again in this volume... The primary takeaway from this book is that if you learn from your experience, you'll be more resilient. That's an important message, as we tend to overestimate how often we learn and how skilled we are at doing it. And it's an important message that experience, both personal and vicarious, affects how well we adapt."
—Administrative Science Quarterly

From the Publisher