Innovating under Pressure: Towards a Science of Crisis Management

Abstract

We propose a rigorous modeling framework for characterizing the structuralability of organizations to respond quickly and effectively to unanticipatedevents. As such, we seek to provide a theoretical basis for improvedcrisis management strategies. Our framework conceptualizes organizationsas adaptive, responsive networks. Most of the existing models ofcomplex social networks to date, however, have not explicitly modeledhuman capacity constraints or system congestion. As a result, noviable frameworks exist for investigating the responsiveness of variousorganizational structures under crisis conditions. Our approach proposesto integrate the social network approach to modeling communicationand collaboration with the flow network approach from productionsystems modeling to represent task processing and flow under crisisconditions. By providing analytic structure to decision making environmentscurrently viewed as not amenable to formal methods, this research,we hope, will help improve the performance of various organizationsin both the private and public sectors.