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2024 | Book

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Upper Echelons’ Naturalistic Decision-Making and Top Management Team Macrocognition in a High Reliability Organization

Author: Leonie Looser

Publisher: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden

Part of: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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About this book

The book analyzes crisis decision-making of a major German airline's operational top management team during the Covid-19 crisis. The operational top manager's relevant decision-making entity, the crisis management team, was faced with substantial time-critical decisions in volatile circumstances as well as the need to balance ambidextrous exigencies with the operation's short-term survival as well as its future viability. The author applies her ethnographic perspective and develops an analysis based on the unique combination of naturalistic decision-making, top management team research, high reliability organizations and ambidexterity as well as team diversity. The work is targeted at both management professionals, as it identifies best pratices and learnings from a polycrisis case, as well as researchers, as it makes a novel contribution to decision-making in the context of high reliability organizations.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. Introduction
Abstract
The COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 2019) pandemic has shaken the airline industry to the core, strongly reinforcing a need for leadership and management answers to extremely challenging conditions which result from operating in volatile, complex, uncertain and ambiguous (VUCA) environments. While especially the airline industry is well weathered in terms of managing different crises, the intensity and multiplicity of the COVID-19 pandemic reached a yet unseen criticality attributable to its mutually reinforcing combination of both substantial operational and economic challenges (Suk & Kim, 2021). To date, little detailed insight on management responses to the COVID-19 pandemic has been provided, and literally none has been provided with regard to airline management teams and their COVID-19 crisis decision-making (Lukić et al., 2020).
Leonie Looser
Chapter 2. Theoretical Foundations: The Organizational Context and High Reliability Theory
Abstract
The current chapter provides an overview of HRT as the relevant organizational context for the intended research. Section 2.1 defines HROs, whose distinctive properties are introduced in Section 2.2. Sections 2.3 and 2.4 detail the original five dimensions of organizational mindfulness in HROs, whose refinements and adaptions are then discussed in Section 2.5.
Leonie Looser
Chapter 3. Theoretical Foundations: The Collaborative Context
Abstract
Following the introduction of the organizational context given for the present thesis, an introduction of relevant concepts associated with the context of teams and collaboration for the current research setting, namely aspects of UET, team cognition, diversity and ambidexterity, are provided in the present chapter. Research findings suggest that to understand and assess a team’s performance, it is relevant to understand a team’s idiosyncrasies as well as to carefully chose the related constructs serving to assess its actions. Consequently, UET, as the theoretical foundation to assess TMT teamwork is introduced in section 3.1.
Leonie Looser
Chapter 4. Theoretical Foundations: The Decision-Making Context
Abstract
Building on the identified relevance of the organizational- (Chapter 2), team- and task context (Chapter 3), the current chapter introduces the relevant conceptual framework for an analysis of the TMT’s decision-making context. Section 4.1 introduces the NDM concept as well as the related notion of expert decision-making and associated decision models. Section 4.2 provides the conceptual demarcation from other theories associated with bounded rationality decision-making in naturalistic environments.
Leonie Looser
Chapter 5. Conceptualized Research Model and Conceptual Connections
Abstract
Building from theoretical findings of chapters 2–4, Section 5.1 provides the conceptualized research model for TMC which will serve as the basis for empirical research and to answer RQ1 and RQ2. Furthermore, Section 5.2 summarizes the current theoretical status quo of high-level connections between the concepts HRO, TMT, DIV, NDM, AMB and TMC which serve as the theoretical baseline to understand conceptual relations and as the basis for empirical research conducted to answer RQ3a and RQ3b.
Leonie Looser
Chapter 6. Research Approach and Empirical Research Setting
Abstract
The current chapter outlines the chosen methodological approach and given research setting for the present thesis, providing a framework for empirical research and analysis. Section 6.1 describes the research design and strategy by outlining the general research approach for the present thesis, CTA as the method chosen for data elicitation, qualitative content analysis (QCA) as the chosen approach for data analysis, as well as a brief introduction to ethnographic aspects relevant for both knowledge elicitation and the interpretation of findings. Section 6.2 introduces the research subject as characterized by the organizational context, the decision-making context and the research participants themselves, as well as their preparation and preparedness for the task.
Leonie Looser
Chapter 7. Empirical Findings and Analysis
Abstract
As previously formulated, it is the central research interest of the present thesis to reach a more detailed and practical understanding of applied TMC in a HRO TMT’s decision-making in a dynamic crisis management context. The empirical results described in the following serve to answer the thesis’ research questions through an empirical application of the derived preliminary TMC framework model (RQ1) as well as through identifying more detailed connections between the considered research concepts. Connections include the manifestation of ambidexterity in TMC, the influence of diversity on TMC in NDM as well as the influence of HRO collective mindfulness and UET on TMC (RQ2).
Leonie Looser
Chapter 8. Summary and Discussion of Key Findings
Abstract
Building from the respective summaries after each chapter (Cf. Sections 2.7, 3.5, 4.8, 7.6), Section 8.1 briefly summarizes the key results of this research. Section 8.2 answers RQ3a regarding the identified success factors and limitations of the EC’s TMC and discusses results as a basis for an answer to RQ3b and learnings derived from the present research case. Finally, a critical evaluation of the chosen research approach and methodology is conducted in Section 8.3.
Leonie Looser
Chapter 9. Research Contributions, Conclusion and Outlook
Abstract
To begin, the present research contributes to a number of conceptual and theoretical issues, especially in terms of the conceptual development and empirical application of TMC: The present thesis analyzed existing TMC models and their evolution and conceptualized a merged own model which was then put to empirical test, hence providing both a conceptual enhancement as well as empirical test of a TMC model, which are yet comparatively rare to be found with the exception of medical or military contexts. More importantly, new contextual and conceptual terrain was entered by the conceptual integration and empirical confirmation of ambidexterity explicitly manifested as knowledge-seeking and sharing behaviors in both processes and indirectly in the emergent states of TMC. By analyzing a HRO TMT’s TMC am empirical contribution to opening the black box of UE team cognition was made in a naturalistic context, which furthermore represents a nearly untouched application context of UE research.
Leonie Looser
Backmatter
Metadata
Title
Upper Echelons’ Naturalistic Decision-Making and Top Management Team Macrocognition in a High Reliability Organization
Author
Leonie Looser
Copyright Year
2024
Electronic ISBN
978-3-658-44073-2
Print ISBN
978-3-658-44072-5
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-44073-2

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