Table Of ContentCrisis, Chaos, and
Organizations
A volume in
Research in Organizational Science
Daniel J. Svyantek, Series Editor
Research in Organizational Science
Daniel J. Svyantek, Series Editor
Organizations Behaving Badly: Destructive Behavior and Corrective Responses
(2021)
Daniel J. Svyantek
Sports and Understanding Organizations (2017)
Daniel J. Svyantek
Organizational Processes and Received Wisdom (2014)
Daniel J. Svyantek and Kevin T. Mahoney
Received Wisdom, Kernels of Truth, and Boundary: Conditions in Organizational
Studies (2013)
Daniel J. Svyantek and Kevin T. Mahoney
Emerging Themes in International Management of Human Resources (2010)
Philip Benson
Refining Familiar Constructs: Alternative Views in OB, HR, and I/O (2007)
Daniel J. Svyantek and Elizabeth McChrystal
A Closer Examination of Applicant Faking Behavior (2006)
Mitchell H. Peterson and Richard L. Griffith
Crisis, Chaos, and
Organizations
The Coronavirus and Lessons
for Organizational Theory
edited by
Daniel J. Svyantek
Auburn University
INFORMATION AGE PUBLISHING, INC.
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CONTENTS
Introduction—Crisis, Chaos, and Organizations:
An Overview of the Volume ................................................................vii
Daniel J. Svyantek
1 A Critical Appraisal of the Dominant Pandemic Narrative ...............1
Bert Spector
2 The Impact of Workload, Workload Changes, and Anticipated
Workload Changes During COVID-19 on Worker Well-Being ........35
Michael DiStaso, Kristin Horan, Chelsea LeNoble, Mindy Shoss,
Zoe Politis, and Ignacio Azcarate
3 Who Rescues the Rescuers? Multilevel Challenges Facing
First Responder Organizations...........................................................67
Marc Cubrich, Ketaki Sodhi, Allie Pettruzzelli, and Dennis Doverspike
4 From Telecommute to Telecommunity: How Disabled Onto-
Epistemologies Inform Post-Pandemic Professional Practices.........99
Martina Svyantek and Rua Mae Williams
5 Organizing Themselves ....................................................................121
Jenifer Neale
6 Radical Acceptance and Executive Decision-Making in the Age
of COVID-19 ......................................................................................149
Susan Cannon and Ruth Middleton-House
v
vi Contents
7 Emergence and Sensemaking in a Complex Global
Knowledge System: Implications for Leaders Post-COVID-19 .......201
Lisa Cuevas Shaw and Laura Hyatt
8 A Differing View of Command in a Connected World:
Captain Brett Crozier and COVID-19 Command Decisions ..........229
Paul Nelson, Robert A. Norton, and Greg S. Weaver
9 The Urgency of Organizational Change Within Colleges
in Crisis ..............................................................................................243
Jennifer McLean and Carrol Warren
10 A Theoretical Analysis of Organizational Change During
COVID-19: Steps, Stages, and Themes for Implementation ..........259
Theodore J. Wiard, Mary J. Selke, and Genevieve Oswald
11 Digital Communication Strategies During Pandemic Crisis:
Lessons From Amazon Company .....................................................283
Ludovica Moi, Simone Serpi, and Francesca Cabiddu
12 COVID-19 Crisis: Chaos and Opportunities for Newer
Organizational Configurations for Multinational
Oil Enterprises ....................................................................................311
Riad A. Ajami, Homa Karimi, Rachel E. Sturm,
and Berkwood Farmer
About the Contributors .....................................................................325
INTRODUCTION
CRISIS, CHAOS, AND
ORGANIZATIONS
An Overview of the Volume
The call for papers for this volume solicited chapters providing insight into
how organizations are addressing a unique environmental event. This event,
of course, was the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The title of the vol-
ume, Crisis, Chaos, and Organizations: The Coronavirus and Lessons for Organi-
zational Theory, reflects the issues organizations are facing due to COVID-19.
The theoretical impetus for the volume arises from the study of complex
systems and the relationship between these systems and their environments
(cf. Svyantek & Brown, 2000). The literature on complex systems provides
a frame for understanding what organizations are facing and makes predic-
tions on what are the proper responses to take in a chaotic crisis. Two impor-
tant conditions of complex systems are illustrated by the COVID-19 pandem-
ic. First, complex systems are usually very stable. Second, however, seemingly
small, insignificant changes in an environment may lead to drastic changes
in a complex system if this small change becomes magnified and cascades
throughout the system (Abraham et al., 1990). It is this second characteristic
that has led to the effects of the COVID-19 virus we are seeing now.
The COVID-19 pandemic provides an illustration of how chaotic changes
to large systems are caused by small, seemingly insignificant environmental
Crisis, Chaos, and Organizations, pages vii–xv
Copyright © 2022 by Information Age Publishing
www.infoagepub.com
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. vii
viii Crisis, Chaos, and Organizations
events. This is the concept of the butterfly effect in complex systems theory
(cf. Liebovitch, 1998). The butterfly event was the initial case(s) of CO-
VID-19 in China. From this small starting point for the pandemic, there
have been (and continue to be) millions of lives lost and trillions of dollars
spent trying to alleviate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. World gov-
ernment and corporate leaders are striving to deal with this pandemic, but
uncertainty is felt across the globe. Unprecedented strategies (e.g., the U.S.
government’s multi-trillion-dollar stimulus package[s]) have been used to
halt the spread of COVID-19. The most important thing to remember about
change from such a butterfly event is that there are no dominant responses
that may be used to address the change. As the event cascades throughout
larger and larger systems, strategies can only be tried out to see if they work.
Some will and some will not work: There is no way, however, to predict the
effects of the strategy. Decisions must be made and implemented to see
what the effects of these decisions are.
Organizations, therefore, face situations where old approaches do not
work without a clear perspective on what must be done in the future. Tush-
man and Anderson (1986) describe two types of changes that may occur
when technology changes happen. These are competence-enhancing and
competence-destroying changes. Competence-enhancing changes are ini-
tiated by existing organizations and do not lead to great changes in the
industrial system being investigated. These changes are incremental. Com-
petence-destroying changes are drastic changes in the industrial system.
These lead to the replacement of old technologies and old companies. This
replacement does not occur in the current dominant organizations in an
industry. Rather, new companies arise and take over the industry.
The world seems to be on hold as more and more organizations are
shut down with no sure indication of when they will open again. Individual
organizations are creating their own responses to the situation. All of these
responses will have potential long-term impact on the nature of work and
the nature of the contract (actual or psychological) that exists between
management and employees of both small and large companies.
Svyantek and Brown (2000) expand Tushman and Anderson’s (1986)
concepts to discuss the idea of competence-enhancing and competence-
destroying change for other important organizational constructs (e.g., or-
ganizational culture). One proposal that Svyantek and Brown (2000) make
is that the role of management during competence-enhancing and compe-
tence-destroying periods of change is very different. During competence-
enhancing periods, managers are able to predict the future fairly well and,
therefore, develop strategies to improve effectiveness or efficiency in the
organization. The strategies here are more concerned with how the orga-
nization interacts with its environment. However, during competence-de-
stroying periods where the effects of decisions are not foreseeable before
Crisis, Chaos, and Organizations ix
their implementation, the role of the manager is to provide social support
for the employees. Here the manager’s role becomes one on maintaining
worker motivation and morale. The manager’s decisions and communica-
tion are directed within the organization towards employees. In the midst
of this pandemic, it is impossible to know if the changes being made in
organizations are competence-enhancing or competence-destroying.This
volume provides 12 interesting views on the nature of changes being made
by organizations during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The first chapter addresses the nature of science and the role of theory
in interpreting data during the COVID-19 pandemic. We have been told,
during the past year, to follow the science to deal with COVID-19 by politi-
cians and talking heads during the past year. However, science uses differ-
ent theories to interpret data. Spector’s chapter describes the effects of us-
ing two different lenses to interpret the same data. He uses frames based on
epidemiological theory and public health theory to show how these frames
affect decisions made. He notes that during a crisis such as COVID-19, re-
sponses being made are not the only responses that are legitimate. These
responses, and differences in these responses, are based on the different
frames being used. This chapter is particularly relevant today as we begin
to see the effects of decisions made based on epidemiological theory have
ramifications in the public health sector. The epidemiological interpreta-
tion may have lowered the death rate slightly. However, we are beginning to
see the impact of these epidemiological decisions on public health issues.
For example, Christakis et al., (2020) discuss how the life expectancy of
children may have been impacted negatively by the decisions made based
on the epidemiological frame. Similarly, Engzell et al. (2021) have shown
that in the Netherlands, during a very short lockdown period in compari-
son to other countries, school children learning from home made little or
no progress. This chapter clearly illustrates the dilemma that may occur
when “the facts and the science” are based more on a political decision-
making process in which power and non-health issues affect how the poten-
tial consequences of the decisions being made are predicted.
The next three chapters describe the impact of COVID-19 on employees
in organizations below managerial levels. Each of these provides insight
into how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected workers.
DiStaso et al. introduce the concept of “disruptive workload change,”
defined as workload change that is the consequence of disruptive con-
texts external to the organization, and distinguish this concept from other
forms of workload change. They look at this issue with both essential and
non-essential workers. They discuss both antecedents and consequences of
this disruptive workload change. Their discussion of this issue illustrates
the problems faced by organizations during a competence-destroying
change period. They recommend that managers identify the aspects of the
