Normal Injustices and Morality in Complex Organizations

Normal Injustices and Morality in Complex Organizations

ABSTRACT. This paper applies theory and research examining errors in complex organizational systems to the problem of individual and collective morality in organizations. It is proposed that because of the nature of complex organizations, unjust outcomes can (and will) result from organizational actions even when all organization members have acted responsibly. The argument that complex organizations are therefore immoral is considered and rejected. Instead, the paper argues that morality in complex organizations begins with “heedful interrelating” among individual organization members. The paper concludes with a discussion of organizational processes and structures that promote heedful interrelating. KEY WORDS: complex organizations, corporate morality, employee accountability, heedful interrelating, organizational errors

The question of whether moral responsibility in complex organizations is an individual or collective phenomenon has generated lively scholarly debate. On one hand are those who insist that corporations should not be viewed as moral agents nor be held morally responsible for organizationally-sanctioned actions but, rather, that individuals should be held responsible for decisions and/or actions that precipitate unjust outcomes (Keeley, 1981; Seabright and Kurke, 1997; Velasquez, 1983; Werhane, 1980). On the other hand are those who argue that because of

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the nature of complex organizations, individuals cannot always be held accountable for organizationally-sanctioned actions and that, therefore, it is reasonable to assign moral responsibility to the organization rather than to any organizational constituent (Donaldson, 1982; French, 1979; Goodpaster and Matthews, 1982; Ozar, 1979; Phillips, 1995; Schultz, 1996). The outcome of this debate is significant not only for legal and philosophical reasons but also because it has implications for the way we think about our own and others’ actions in the context of the organizations we inhabit. The purpose of the present paper is to suggest another perspective on this debate – a perspective suggested by research and theory on the occurrence and avoidance of errors in complex organizations (e.g., Perrow, 1984; Weick and Roberts, 1993; Weick et al., 1999). Specifically, this paper asks the question: Is it possible for injustices to occur in an organization when all constituents have acted responsibly? Based on an application of the above research and theory on organizational errors, I suggest that it is possible. Given this conclusion, I consider the nature of organizational morality and individual responsibility in complex organizations and propose that individual responsibility in complex organizations begins with “heedful interrelating”.

Normal injustices in complex organizations J. Stuart Bunderson is an assistant professor of organizational behavior at the John M. Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis. His current research focuses on experiential resources in groups and organizations and on the management of cognitive and ideological diversity.

Charles Perrow, in his influential book Normal Accidents (1984), makes the argument that in complex organizational systems, errors are not only likely, they are “normal”. He supports this argument by invoking two characteristics of

Journal of Business Ethics 33: 181–190, 2001. © 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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complex organizational forms: interactive complexity and tight coupling. Interactive complexity exists in a system when it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to predict all of the ways in which the different components of the system might interact. A system is tightly coupled when the component parts of the system are interrelated in such a way that the state of one component affects and is affected by the state of other components. Perrow argues that when these two characteristics are combined,1 accidents are inevitable and therefore normal; that it is just a matter of getting the “right” alignment of component states before an accident occurs. He further suggests that these accidents cannot always be attributed to human error because no human can be expected to understand or predict all the ways in which complex systems will behave. He gives a variety of examples of “normal accidents” including the accident at Three Mile Island, air traffic control situations, marine transport, and space missions. Although Perrow’s argument was designed to explain system accidents that result in damage or loss of life, the same argument applies to what I refer to as normal injustices. Interactive complexity and tight coupling make it possible for responsible actions to have unforeseen repercussions that result in unfairness and injustice2 for some person or persons with a stake in the organization. Because the unjust outcomes could not have been anticipated, no one individual or group of individuals can be held responsible. The following example will illustrate. I recently had the opportunity to conduct a series of interviews with business unit (BU) managers at a large beverage company (we’ll call it BevCo). In one of these BUs, there was a minority woman – we’ll call her Lisa – who had worked for the company for over 17 years in a human resources capacity. About six months before the interview, Lisa’s unit had been acquired by BevCo. In the BevCo structure into which her unit was absorbed, all human resources positions had already been filled by capable employees with several years of tenure in the organization. Therefore, her position was redundant and had to be eliminated. Nevertheless, because the BU manager was

reluctant to let Lisa go, he put her in a new position in the BevCo structure. In the six months since the acquisition, Lisa had worked extremely hard at her new position, trying to make the transition to a new set of responsibilities and a different set of competencies. In the words of her business unit manager, “[Lisa] happens to be one of the hardest working people on the team. She’s been termed by some to be a workaholic. I’m here quite a few hours early and she’s probably here more than anyone else right alongside me.” Nevertheless, Lisa was clearly not qualified for the new position. The abilities that she had worked to develop over the past 17 years were in human resources, not in her new assignment. As a result, her performance was sub-par and the BU manager, under assignment to cut costs in his business unit, was planning to let her go. His pain at that decision was clearly evident in the interview. Who is responsible for this injustice? Many would be inclined to blame the business unit manager since he was the closest to the situation and the one responsible for making the final decisions about the future of his employee. This is a troublesome argument, however, given that the business unit manager was trying to make the most of a difficult situation and had, in fact, done more than many would have done in his situation. If he had done more, he could easily have been risking his own job or the jobs of other BevCo employees. We might blame BevCo, arguing that they should not have imposed a new structure on an existing organization. This is also a tough position given that BevCo’s purchase of the business unit made it possible for many people to keep their jobs who might otherwise have lost them. Perhaps the mandate to cut costs was immoral, again placing the blame in BevCo’s camp. But failure to cut costs would have also led to more job losses. We might, therefore, blame the human resources employees of the BU who had been there for less time than this person, had not invested as much as she had, and yet, were keeping their jobs at her expense. The fact that they had no role at all in the decision, however, makes it difficult to assign responsibility there. Perhaps we could blame BevCo’s competitors for engaging in the price war that had forced the

Normal Injustices and Morality in Complex Organizations franchise bottler to sell and BevCo to cut costs. Or we might point our fingers at the consumer for not buying enough BevCo products to keep this person employed. These arguments are obviously problematic given the distance of these parties from the decision-making process. Or finally, perhaps the victim herself was to blame because she should have learned new skills and abilities that would have enabled her to perform better in the new position. It is difficult to imagine, however, what more she could have done. If any one individual or group in this example had acted differently, the injustice might have been avoided. If BevCo had allowed for an HR position at the business unit level or if the business unit manager had allowed Lisa to stay in her position or if the competition had not instigated the price war, Lisa may not be in danger of losing her job. But each of these parties was acting in a reasonable and responsible manner given the contingencies of the system. They could not have known that their collective actions would result in the termination of this employee. That is what makes this a normal injustice. A normal injustice is an injustice without a perpetrator, an injustice that occurs because the actions of a number of individuals, individuals who have acted in reasonable and responsible ways, combine in such a way that an injustice results.

Normal injustices and organizational morality The idea that injustices can occur in all complex organizational systems through the complex interactions of component parts raises an interesting question: Are complex organizational systems therefore immoral? If the interactive complexity and tight coupling of complex organizations can convert responsible intentions into unjust outcomes, then perhaps complex organizations are immoral. We should therefore eliminate complex organizational forms, preferring to live in simplicity as recommended by Thoreau. Those who allow complex organizations to be created would therefore be immoral.

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The following adaptation of a well-known example, drawn from research on the nature of complex, interactive systems, may demonstrate the difficulty of this argument. Given the interactive complexity and tight coupling of global weather patterns, it has been argued that the gentle flap of a butterfly’s wing in Indonesia can instigate a chain reaction that results in a hurricane in Georgia. Let’s assume that the resulting hurricane leads to loss of life and/or property. Is anyone responsible for this injustice? We might argue that the butterfly was at fault given her role in the affair. But this argument fails for the same reason that BevCo’s competitors can’t be blamed for the termination of the BevCo employee in the previous example. The butterfly could not have known that her flap would interact with other flurries in such a way as to result in a Georgia hurricane. Do we therefore conclude that the global weather system is immoral? We could, but we gain very little by doing so. The global weather system is not a self-directed entity – it has no will. It is a system that takes a set of inputs and produces a set of outputs according to physical laws involving atmospheric pressures, temperatures, wind currents, etc. The flap of the butterfly’s wing that led to a Georgia hurricane could just as well have triggered an unseasonably mild spring which allows a farmer and his family to plant their crops early and save their farm. Would we therefore conclude that the global weather system was acting in a morally responsible way? Once again, we could, but it buys us very little. Assignment of morality serves no useful purpose when self-direction is not involved. This is essentially Kant’s argument in the first section of his Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals (1981): “There is no possibility of thinking of anything at all in the world, or even out of it, which can be regarded as good without qualification, except a good will” (393). He argues that all other “goods” can just as easily be turned into “bads” but that a will “. . . is good only through its willing, i.e., it is a good in itself ” (393). Although Kant focused on the assignment of “good”, we might make the same argument with regard to the assignment of “bad” or

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“immoral”. Kant’s argument would be just as valid if he had worded it as follows: There is no possibility of thinking of anything at all in the world, or even out of it, which can be regarded as immoral without qualification, except an immoral will. Since the global weather system has no will, it is neither good nor bad, moral nor immoral, regardless of how individuals are affected by its operation. I submit that the same argument applies to complex organizations. An organization is not a self-directed entity – it has no will. Organizations are social and technological systems (Emery and Trist, 1946) that take certain inputs (an acquisition, an organizational structure) and produce outputs (a profitable business unit, a termination). It is therefore meaningless to argue that an organization “willed” a certain outcome and should therefore be held accountable. Organizations have no self-directing will. It is important to note that the operation of informed wills does not change the structure of the above argument. If our butterfly, being highly versed in the meteorological sciences, had known that her flap would destroy a barn in Georgia (which she considered to be an eyesore), then she must clearly be held accountable. This does not mean, however, that the global weather system was acting irresponsibly. The global weather system acts as it is configured to act whether the individual wills impacting its operation are good, bad, or ignorant. The same is true of complex organizations – organizations are amoral (neither moral nor immoral) systems. Assigning morality or immorality to complex organizational systems may not only be philosophically misdirected, it may actually be dysfunctional if the goal is to understand and foster moral behavior in organizations. The following section further develops this notion.

Normal injustives and individual morality An important premise of our above argument has been that, in cases of interactive complexity and tight coupling, organizational members cannot know when their actions may contribute to an unjust outcome and cannot, therefore, be held

accountable. This argument raises an important question: What about those cases where organization members could have known that their actions would contribute to an unjust outcome, but did not? Or to state the question another way, Can you ever argue that organization members who did not know that their actions would contribute to an injustice should have known and are therefore still accountable? I argue that you can. There are at least three ways that individual action might conceivably contribute to injustice in organizations: (i) the individual could not have anticipated the unjust outcome given interactive complexity and tight coupling, (ii) the individual did anticipate the unjust outcome but acted anyway, or (iii) the individual could have anticipated the unjust outcome but did not. The individual in (i) is not accountable given our prior logic. The individual in (ii) is clearly accountable. The situation of the individual in (iii) is less clear. Adolph Eichmann in Hannah Arendt’s (1964) Eichmann in Jerusalem is an example of someone who falls into the third category. Eichmann was involved in coordinating the transportation of millions of Jews from their homes in various parts of Europe to the concentration camps. After the war, he was captured and tried as a war criminal. It was clear from the start that Eichmann’s actions contributed to a tremendous injustice; that was never at issue in the trial. The real issue in the trial was whether Eichmann was aware that his actions were contributing to the deaths of millions of people and if not, if he should have known. As the trial progressed, it became more and more evident that Eichmann had not made the connection between his actions and the extermination of the Jews. It also became clear that he had many opportunities to do so. Eichmann’s focus had been on the dutiful execution of his responsibilities and on pleasing his superiors, not on a thoughtful or evaluative consideration of the outcome to which he was contributing. It even seems that Eichmann would have been shocked to think that he could have participated in such a gross immorality; he had never considered that possibility. Arendt concludes that Eichmann’s actions were banal, leading us to suspect that

Normal Injustices and Morality in Complex Organizations banality might be a central component in organizational immorality. It is useful to consider Eichmann’s banality from the perspective that Weick and Roberts (1993) provide in their discussion of collective errors in complex organizational systems. Weick and Roberts introduce the idea of “heedful interrelating” as the key to avoiding errors in complex systems (see also Langer, 1989; Weick, Sutcliffe, and Obstfeld, 1999). Heedful interrelating exists when individuals in a complex system do their best to (1) understand how the system has been configured to achieve some goal (i.e., the “big picture”), (2) understand how their individual job fits into this “big picture”, and (3) maintain a conscious awareness of both as they perform their duties. They contrast this with “heedless” interrelating wherein an individual simply “does her job”, ignoring what goes on around her. The concept of heedful interrelating is wellillustrated by a traffic metaphor. Much of the interaction between drivers on busy highways in the U.S. is regulated through an intricate system of laws and procedures. We must stop at a red light, signal when we turn, obey the speed limit, and stay on our own side of the road. Nevertheless, there is, in driving, a zone of ambiguity where laws provide inadequate direction. Take, for example, the act of merging onto a busy freeway. A successful merge requires a degree of accommodation on the part of the driver merging as well as the drivers already on the freeway. The simple rule: “merging cars must yield” is inadequate to completely specify the interaction that must take place for a successful merge. Imagine what would occur if those already speeding down the freeway stuck to the “merging cars must yield” law (which many drivers do). Merging becomes very difficult and accidents become much more frequent. The following epitaph illustrates this complexity: “Here lies the body of William Gray, who died maintaining his right of way. Now William was right as he sped along, but he’s just as dead as if he’d been wrong”. Persistent conformance to rules in the “zone of ambiguity” can lead to complex and potentially dangerous interactions. It is here

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where heedful interrelating becomes especially critical. Weick and Roberts (1993) would argue that Eichmann’s involvement in the holocaust was “heedless” since he was oblivious to the purpose and direction of the system, choosing to focus exclusively on the flawless execution of his particular duties. Eichmann stuck to the “subordinate officers must obey implicitly” rule and, as a result, never explored or questioned the rightness or wrongness of his involvement in the Third Reich. Responsible moral behavior begins with an understanding of how actions impact the rights and privileges of others. Heedless interrelating divorces an individual from this understanding, making responsible decision making and action within an organization impossible. But does heedless interrelating therefore excuse an individual from accountability when his or her actions have contributed to an injustice? I suggest that it does not. If an individual could have known that his or her actions would lead to an injustice but did not because of heedless interrelating, they should still be held accountable. The conclusion of Eichmann’s jury supports this reasoning. In the end, Eichmann was forced to account for his misdeeds. The jury determined that there was no valid reason for Eichmann not to have known that his actions were contributing to an injustice. He was therefore either willfully immoral or criminally negligent. In either case, he was guilty. The case of Adolph Eichmann suggests an important principle about individual responsibility in complex organizational systems, namely, moral behavior in complex organizations begins with heedful interrelating. It is only when an organization member is interrelating heedfully that he or she can make responsible decisions about what is and what is not appropriate, moral behavior. If an organization member is interrelating heedfully and is still unable to determine that a given action will contribute to an injustice (because of interactive complexity and tight coupling), he or she should not be held accountable for the injustice. If, on the other hand, an individual could have known that his or her actions would contribute to an injustice but did not know

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because of heedless interrelating, the accountability for the injustice remains. The tragic explosion of the space shuttle Challenger3 provides another illustration of the role of heedful (or heedless) interrelating in organizational morality. On January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven astronauts aboard, including several civilians. The Rogers Commission, which was formed shortly after the accident to investigate its causes, concluded that the explosion occurred because an O-ring failed to seal in one of the solid rocket booster joints. The Commission further discovered that top managers at both Morton Thiokol and NASA had been aware of the O-ring problem and had decided to proceed with the launch anyway, against the strict recommendations of several engineers. These experts had concluded based on past flights and a series of tests that O-ring failure was likely under low temperatures. Given the temperatures on January 28th, they had recommended not to launch. The inquiry conducted by the Rogers Commission further concluded that “there was a serious flaw in the decision making process leading up to the launch of flight 51-L” (cited in Boisjoly et al., 1989, p. 225). They resolved that the management system at Morton Thiokol had generated “a mindset of ‘collective responsibility’ by leading individuals to defer to the anonymity of the process and not focus closely enough on their individual responsibilities in the decision chain” (cited in Boisjoly et al., 1989, p. 225). When probed about their motivations for making certain decisions and taking certain actions, NASA officials and managers at Morton Thiokol defended themselves with statements like “that is not my reporting channel”, “he is not in the launch decision chain”, “that was a Level III issue”, and “I didn’t meet with Mr. Boisjoly, I met with . . . the task team leader” (cited in Boisjoly et al., 1989, p. 225). These process dynamics as described by the Rogers Commission are exactly the dynamics of heedless interrelating. In heedless interrelating, individuals “defer to the anonymity of the process” (cited above) rather than actively seek to understand that process and their role within

it. As a result, “attention is focused on the local situation rather than the joint situation” (Weick and Roberts, 1989) and things like “reporting channels”, “decision chains”, and “levels” are invoked in place of clear reasoning about the relationship between individual actions and organizational outcomes. The prevailing atmosphere becomes one of “collective responsibility” (i.e., “the system is responsible”) rather than of individual responsibility within a coordinated and interconnected system. Should we conclude, then, that Morton Thiokol was an immoral organization during the time before and after the Challenger launch? We might, but it buys us very little. Assigning blame to the organization (a non-willful entity) doesn’t tell us how the actions of individual decision makers (willful entities) combined to result in an ill-advised launch decision. It is much more useful to argue that the atmosphere which had been created at Morton Thiokol prior to the Challenger launch was one of heedless interrelating and that, as a result, individual decision makers across the organization were not making decisions with the “big picture” in mind. Consequently, the decision process failed to incorporate critical technical failure data and a terrible tragedy occurred. By focusing our evaluation at the level of individual and interindividual behavior, we begin to see how organizational morality begins with heedful interrelating. It is interesting to speculate on what may have happened at Morton Thiokol and NASA had heedful interrelating been a driving principle. If decision-makers at Morton Thiokol and NASA had emerged from the “anonymity of the process” long enough to interrelate heedfully, they may have recognized that the O-ring problem required more than a standard response. O-ring failure data would then have taken its proper place in the decision-making process and, we might expect, the decision would not have been made to launch. Returning to an earlier example, it is also interesting to speculate on how heedful interrelating may have affected the plight of Lisa, our BevCo employee. If, for example, those involved in negotiating the terms of the acquisition agree-

Normal Injustices and Morality in Complex Organizations ment when Lisa’s franchise was being purchased had acted with the “big picture” in mind, they may have foreseen that their actions would lead to employment problems for people like Lisa. They might then have made adjustments in the terms of the agreement such that Lisa could receive the training she needed to become effective in her new assignment. Although these scenarios are clearly speculative, they illustrate the point that when individuals act with heed in their organizational interactions, they are in a better position to be able to make moral and responsible decisions and less likely to do things that result in injustices for organizational stakeholders or stakeholder groups. Heedful interrelating does not ensure that moral behavior will take place; individual commitment to moral action is still a fundamental and decisive criterion. Nevertheless, I suggest that morality in organizations requires a recognition of the interconnectedness of individual contributions, a recognition that begins with heedful interrelating.

Summary and conclusion The above discussion of morality in complex organizations, which has drawn heavily on theory and research dealing with errors and error prevention in complex organizational systems, leads us to a few simple conclusions. First, we must acknowledge that it is not possible to make organizations completely “safe” for individuals. The nature of complex organizations makes it possible and likely that injustices will occur in all organizations, even when those involved have acted responsibly. Nevertheless, it is not useful to conclude that all organizations are immoral. Rather, by recognizing the amorality of complex organizations, we highlight the importance of personal vigilance and responsibility in helping to avoid those abuses that are foreseeable and avoidable. This leads to our second conclusion, i.e., that moral behavior in complex systems begins with heedful interrelating – an effort to act and interact with the local and global organizational contexts in mind. Heedful interrelating improves an individual’s ability to understand

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how his or her actions might impact others, an understanding that is fundamental to moral and responsible behavior. A critical question that emerges from the above analysis concerns the relationship between organizational structures and processes and the degree of heedful interrelating that occurs among organization members. It may be that organizations can foster heedfulness (and hence, more responsible behavior) through the conscious implementation of culture, structure, process, or practice. On the other hand, there may be organizations in which heedfulness is simply more difficult to attain given the organizational context. Once again, research on the avoidance of errors in complex organizations provides a useful starting point for addressing these questions. In their discussion of “high reliability organizations” – organizations that are able to maintain low (or even zero) error rates in spite of interactive complexity and tight coupling – Weick et al. (1999) identified five core processes associated with high reliability: (1) a preoccupation with failure, (2) a reluctance to simplify interpretations, (3) a sensitivity to operations, (4) an underspecification of structure, and (5) a commitment to resilience. Although Weick et al. (1999) focused on organizational errors, their arguments have relevance for our present discussion of organizational injustices. This paper will therefore conclude with a brief consideration of how similar processes might be key to the creation of “high responsibility organizations” – organizations that minimize injustices through the promotion of heedful interrelating. 1. A preoccupation with injustice. In high reliability organizations, there is a preoccupation with the prevention of errors, a preoccupation that is reinforced through cultural symbols, reporting practices, and training systems. In high responsibility organizations, the corollary is a preoccupation with the prevention of injustices, a strong emphasis on avoiding actions that harm or disadvantage stakeholders. This preoccupation is reinforced through management practices and cultural symbols that underscore the organization’s commitment to minimizing injustices. So, for example, high responsibility organizations

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might include injustice prevention in their statement of principle, sponsor training seminars, or recognize specific employees who act in heedful ways. 2. A reluctance to simplify accountability. High reliability organizations are also characterized by their reluctance to simplify the models they use to understand the world, thereby encouraging employees to consider a broader range of issues when making decisions. Analogously, we might hypothesize that high responsibility organizations will be characterized by their reluctance to simplify the set of stakeholders to whom the organization or individuals within the organization should hold themselves accountable. When organizations or individuals focus on pleasing a narrow range of stakeholders (e.g., investors, one’s boss), they are are less likely to consider how their actions might result in injustices for other stakeholders (e.g., the community, coworkers). In contrast, by explicitly acknowledging the full range of stakeholders who might be affected by individual or organizational decisions, organizations and individuals are better equipped to anticipate and act to prevent otherwise unforeseen injustices. 3. A sensitivity to operations. Although a perfect understanding of behavioral consequences may be impossible to achieve in organizations that are interactively complex and tightly coupled, high reliability organizations seek to minimize error by encouraging employees to understand as much of their broader work context as they possibly can. In high responsibility organizations, this same broader understanding is an important prerequisite for minimizing injustices. Employees who are given only enough information to enable them to perform some small piece of a larger work process are ill-equipped to predict when their actions or decisions might adversely affect other individuals or groups. A broader understanding of the context within which an individual is working empowers that individual to interrelate in ways that avoid injustices. High responsibility organizations might promote this broader understanding through more comprehensive orientation, job rotation, and better communication. 4. An underspecification of structure. Research on high reliability organizations has suggested the

interesting paradox that too much emphasis on reducing errors through formal structure (e.g., extensive rules, standards, and procedures) may actually increase errors by disallowing individual initiative in responding to situational nuances that require different behavior. This same basic principle applies in the case of high responsibility organizations. Organizations that prescribe individual action too tightly discourage heedful interrelating by allowing individuals to shift responsibility from themselves to the anonymity of the process. Consequently, high responsibility organizations may need to leave structure incompletely specified, requiring individuals to “fill in the gaps” by exercising their own moral initiative in anticipating and preventing injustices. 5. A commitment to restitution. Finally, Weick et al. (1999) have suggested that high reliability organizations are committed to resilience in that they respond aggressively and creatively when it becomes apparent that an error has either occurred or is imminent. By analogy, we might hypothesize that high responsibility organizations will be committed to aggressive and creative restitution for any injustices that have resulted (or may result) from organizational action. By demonstrating a credible commitment to restitution, high responsibility organizations can encourage individual employees to “think twice” before taking an action that might result in an injustice they will later need to correct. Although these five processes suggest some things that organizations might do to promote heedful interrelating, they also underscore a central conclusion of this paper – that morality in complex organizations comes down to the individual. While it is possible for injustices to occur in complex organizations when all individuals have acted responsibly, it is also possible for individuals to anticipate and act to prevent injustices by interrelating in heedful ways. By adopting the habit of heedful interrelating and building organizations that encourage this habit, we recognize that although certain injustices may be normal, they do not have to be common.

Normal Injustices and Morality in Complex Organizations Acknowledgements This paper has benefitted greatly from conversations with and input from Norm Bowie, Ian Maitland, Poornima Ramachandran, Bonner Ritchie, Marion Shumway, Jeff Thompson, and participants in Ian Maitland’s doctoral seminar on Business, Government, and Society at the University of Minnesota.

Notes 1

Weick, Sutcliffe, and Obstfeld (1999) have argued that because of interconnected technologies and interconnected resource demands, all organizations are moving toward an interactively complex, tightly coupled state. 2 In this paper, I define justice as fairness in distribution or outcome (a la Rawls, 1971; Mill, 1962) rather than fairness in process, procedure, or interaction (a la Friedman, 1962; Kant, 1981). 3 The Challenger data presented here were drawn from published descriptions and analyses of the Challenger incident, including Boisjoly, Curtis, and Mellican (1989), Starbuck and Milliken (1988), Werhane (1991), and Weick (1997).

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John M. Olin School of Business, Washington University in St. Louis, Campus Box 1133, One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130-4899, U.S.A. E-mail: [email protected]