The Library

Managing the threat of terrorism in British travel and leisure organizations

Tools

Sullivan-Taylor, Bridgette and Wilson, David C. (David Charles). (2009) Managing the threat of terrorism in British travel and leisure organizations. Organization Studies, Vol.30 (No.2-3). pp. 251-276. ISSN 0170-8406

Preview

PDF
WRAP_Wilson_OS_Special_Issue_Revise_and_Resubmit_Final_Accept_to_edit.pdf - Submitted Version - Requires a PDF viewer such as GSview, Xpdf or Adobe Acrobat Reader
Download (491Kb)

Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0170840608101480

Abstract

This paper examines the perceived threats from terrorism in six organizations in the travel and leisure sector in the UK. These organizations are particularly exposed to such extreme threats. This paper examines how managers in organizations deal with uncertainty where probabilities are impossible or difficult to define and examines how they face the challenge of interpreting and acting upon these interpretations. Theoretically the paper draws upon two lenses: organizational resilience and institutional perspectives. The former assumes managers can act autonomously to increase organizational resilience. The latter argues that systemic features of organization are more accurate explanations of why managers and organizations fail to spot threats and impending disasters. The data indicate that perceptions of uncertainty and threats from terrorism and theories of action differ in and between organizations depending upon factors such as the accuracy and completeness of information; previous experience of terrorist events and whether or not these threats were prioritized over other uncertainties. Three organizations in the aviation industry prioritize threats from terrorism, whilst three organizations in the leisure and travel sector do not. Managers in the aviation industry tend to take a proactive, organizational resilience stance towards uncertainty, whilst managers in the other organizations are more reactive, or take little action, with systemic features of organization taking precedence over decisions and actions.

Item Type:

Journal Article

Subjects:

H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor
H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare

Divisions:

Faculty of Social Sciences > Warwick Business School > Marketing & Strategic Management
Faculty of Social Sciences > Sociology
Faculty of Social Sciences > Warwick Business School

Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):

Terrorism -- Great Britain, Leisure industry -- Great Britain, Tourism -- Great Britain, Business planning -- Great Britain

Journal or Publication Title:

Organization Studies

Publisher:

Sage Publications Ltd.

ISSN:

0170-8406

Official Date:

2009

Dates:

Date	Event
2009	Published

Volume:

Vol.30

Number:

No.2-3

Number of Pages:

Page Range:

pp. 251-276

Identification Number:

10.1177/0170840608101480

Status:

Peer Reviewed

Publication Status:

Published

Access rights to Published version:

Open Access

Funder:

Leverhulme Trust (LT)

Grant number:

ECF/2004/038

References:

Ball, K., and D. C. Wilson (2000) ‘Power, control and computer-based monitoring: repertoires, resistance and subjectivities’. Organization Studies 21/3: 539-566.
Beck, Ulrich (1992) Risk society: towards a new modernity. London: Sage.
Beck, Ulrich (2000) Power in the global age. London: Polity Press.
Bentley, Tim, and Stephen J. Page (2001) ‘Scoping the extent of adventure tourism accidents’. Annals of Tourism Research 28/3: 705-725.
Bhide, A. and Stevenson, H. (1992). ‘Trust, uncertainty, and profits’. Journal of Socio-Economics, 21, 91-208.
Bougon, Michel, Karl Wieck, and Din Binkhorst (1977) ‘Cognition in organizations: an analysis of the Utrecht Jazz Orchestra’. Administrative Science Quarterly 22/4: 606-639.
Bryan, L. L., and C. Joyce (2005) ‘The 21st century organization’. McKinsey Quarterly 3: 1-6.
Callander, Marie, and Stephen J. Page (2003) ‘Managing risk in adventure tourism operations in New Zealand’. Tourism Management 14: 13-23.
Cerulo, Karen A. (2006) Never saw it coming: cultural challenges to envisioning the worst. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Cornish, P., (2007) Britain and Security. London: The Smith Institute.
Czinkota, Michael, Gary A. Knight, and Peter W. Liesch (2004) ‘Terrorism and international business: conceptual foundations’ in Terrorism and the international business environment: the security-business nexus. G. Suder (ed.). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Czinkota, Michael R., Gary A. Knight, Peter W. Liesch, and John Steen (2005) ‘Positioning terrorism in management and marketing: research propositions’. Journal of International Management 11: 581-604.
DiMaggio, P. J., and W. W. Powell (1983) ‘The iron cage revisited: institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields’. American Sociological Review 48/2: 147-160.
Eden, Colin, Fran Ackermann, and Steve Cropper (1992) ‘The analysis of cause maps’. Journal of Management Studies. May, 29/3: 309-325.
Eisenhardt, Kathleen M. (1989) ‘Building theories from case study research’. The Academy of Management Review Oct 1989 14/4: 532-551.
Faulkner, B. (2001) ‘Towards a framework for tourism disaster management’. Tourism Management 22/1: 135-147.
Fiedler, F. E. and Garcia, J.E. (1987). ‘New Approaches to Leadership, Cognitive Resources and Organizational Performance’. New York: Wiley.
Furnham, A. (1992). Personality at Work. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.
Gephart, Robert P. Jr. (1984) ‘Making sense of organizational succession: an ethnomethodological approach’. Administrative Science Quarterly 28: 553-581.
Gephart, Robert P. Jr. (1988) ‘Managing the meaning of a sour gas well blowout: the public culture of organizational disaster’. Industrial and Environmental Crisis Quarterly 2: 17-32.
Gephart, Robert P. Jr. (2004) ‘Normal risk’. Organization and Environment 17/1: 20-26.
Gephart, Robert P. Jr., and R. Pitter (1993) ‘The organizational basis of industrial accidents in Canada’. Journal of Management Inquiry 2/3: 238-252.
Giddens, Anthony (1998) The politics of risk society. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Gilovich, T., R. Vallone, and A. Tversky (1985) ‘The hot hand in basketball: on the misperception of random sequences’. Cognitive Psychology 17, 295-314.
Gioia, D., Henry P, and Jr, Sims (1986) ‘Cognition-behaviour connections: attribution and verbal behaviour in leader-subordinate interactions’. Organizational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes New York. 37, April: 197-230.
Glaser, Barney G., and Anselm L. Strauss (1967) The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company.
Goffman, Erving (1974) Frame analysis: an essay on the organization of experience. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
Greenaway, Rob (1996) ‘Thrilling not killing: managing the risk tourism business’. Management May: 46-49.
Greenwood, R., and C. R. Hinings (1988) ‘Organizational design types, tracks and the dynamics of strategic change’. Organization Studies 9/3: 293-316.
Gummesson, Evert (1991) Qualitative methods in management research. London: Sage.
Hamel, Gary, and Liisa Valikangas (2003) ‘The quest for resilience’. Harvard Business Review September: 52–63.
Hedberg, B. (1981) ‘How organizations learn and unlearn’, in Handbook of Organizational Design Vol. 1. P. C. Nystrom and W. H. Starbuck (eds). New York: Oxford University Press.
Hertz, David, and Howard Thomas (1983) Risk analysis and its applications. New York: Wiley.
Hespos, Richard. F., and Paul A. Strassmann (1965) ‘Stochastic decision trees for the analysis of investment decisions’. Management Science 11/10: 244-259.
Hickson, David J., Susan Miller, and David C. Wilson (2003) ‘Planned or prioritized? Two options in managing the implementation of strategic decisions’. Journal of Management Studies 40/7: 1803-1836.
Keynes, J. M. (1921) Treatise on probability. London: Macmillan.
Knight, Frank H. (1921) Risk, uncertainty and profit. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Langley, A. (1999) ‘Strategies for theorizing from process data’. Academy of Management Review 24/4: 691-710.
Laqueur, Walter (1999) The new terrorism: fanaticism and the arms of mass destruction. London: Phoenix Press.
Legge, K., B. Sullivan-Taylor, and D. C. Wilson (2007) ‘Management learning and the MBA: the beast that morphed into a chameleon’. Management Learning 38/4: 440-457.
Luhmann, Niklas (1993) Risk: a sociological theory. Berlin: Aldine de Gruyter.
March, J. G. (1981) ‘Footnotes to organizational change’. Administrative Science Quarterly 26: 563-577.
March, J. G., and J. P. Olsen (1984) ‘The new institutionalism: organizational factors in political life’. The American Political Science Review 78/3, Sept: 734-749.
March, James G., editor (1999) The pursuit of organizational intelligence. Oxford: Blackwell.
Mayntz, Renate (2004) ‘Organizational forms of terrorism hierarchy, network, or a type of sui generis?’ MpifG Discussion Paper. Germany: Max Planck Institute for Societies.
Meyer, Alan D. (1982) ‘Adapting to environmental jolts’. Administrative Science Quarterly 27: 515-537.
Meyer, A. D., V. Gaba, and K. A. Colwell (2005) ‘Organizing far from equilibrium: nonlinear change in organizational fields’, Organization Science 16/5: 456-473.
Miller, Susan, David C. Wilson and David J. Hickson (2004) ‘Beyond planning: strategies for successfully implementing strategic decisions’. Long Range Planning 37: 201-218.
Odean, T. (1998) ‘Are investors reluctant to realize their losses?’. Journal of Finance American Finance Association 53/5:1775-1798.
Oliver, C. (1991) ‘Strategic responses to institutional processes’. Academy of Management Review 16: 145-179.
Omand, D. (2006) ‘In the national interest: organising government for national security’. The DEMOS Annual Security Lecture. London: Demos.
Orlikowski, Wanda, and Debra Gash (2000) ‘Using technology and constituting structures: a practice lens for studying technology in organizations’. Organization Science 11/4: 404-428.
Paraskevas, A. and B. Arendell (2007). A Strategic Framework for Terrorism Prevention and Mitigation in Tourism Destinations. Tourism Management, 28/6: 1560-1573.
Pentland, B. T. (1999) ‘Building process theory with narrative: from description to explanation’. Academy of Management Review 24/4: 711-724.
Perrow, Charles (1984) Normal accidents: living with high risk technologies. New York: Basic Books.
Perrow, Charles (1999) Normal accidents: living with high risk technologies. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Powell, W. W. and P. J. Dimaggio (1991) The new institutionalism in organizational analysis. Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
Reed, Mike (1997) ‘In praise of duality and dualism: re-thinking agency and structure in organizational studies,’ Organization Studies. 18/1: 21-42.
Roberts, Karlen. (1990) ‘Some characteristics of one type of high reliability organization’. Organization Science 1: 160-176.
Scott, W. R. (1987) ‘The adolescence of institutional theory’. Administrative Science Quarterly 32/4: 493 -515.
Scott, W. R. (1995) Institutions and organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Starbuck, W., and M. Farjoun, editors (2005) Organization at the limit: NASA and the Columbia disaster. Oxford: Blackwell.
Sullivan-Taylor, B. and D. C. Wilson (2007) ‘Resilience and complacency in the private sector’ in Britain and Security. P. Cornish (Ed.). London: The Smith Institute.
Taleb, Nassim (2007) The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. New York: Random House.
Tarlow, Peter E., and Gui. Santana (2002) ‘Providing safety for tourists: a study of a selected sample of tourist destinations in the United States and Brazil’. Journal of Travel Research 40/4: 424-431.
Thompson, James D. (1967) Organizations in Action. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Turner, Barry (1976) ‘The organizational and interorganizational development of disasters’. Administrative Science Quarterly 21/3: 378-397.
Turner, Barry (1978) Man-Made Disasters. London: Wykeham.
Van Maanen, John (1983) Qualitative Methodology. Beverly Hills: Sage.
Vaughan, Diane (1990) ‘Autonomy, interdependence and social control: NASA and the space shuttle Challenger’. Administrative Science Quarterly 35: 225-257.
Vaughan, D. (2005) ‘On slippery slopes, repeating negative patterns and learning from mistake’ in Organization at the limit: NASA and the Columbia disaster. W. Starbuck, and M. Farjoun (eds). Oxford: Blackwell.
Weick, Karl (1979) The social psychology of organizing (2nd Edition). Reading MA: Addison-Wesley.
Weick, Karl (1995) Sensemaking in organizations. London: Sage.
Weick, Karl E., and Kathleen M. Sutcliffe (2001) Managing the unexpected - assuring high performance in an age of complexity. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Wensley, R. (2003) ‘Strategy as intention and anticipation’ in Images of Strategy. S. Cummings, and D. C. Wilson (eds). Oxford: Blackwell.