ABSTRACT

This chapter examines one component of organisational resilience, namely managerial resilience – defined as the ability to deal with conflicts between safety and performance goals. Analysis of the circumstances leading to the loss of Vasa revealed several weaknesses in organisational resilience. Treating the Vasa capsize as a new-product disaster, Kessler et al. identified contributing causal factors, including: Obsession with speed and Top management meddling. Three component skills characterise managerial resilience in relation to safety: diagnosis, decision-making and assertiveness. As Vaughn's analysis reveals, the behaviour of the engineer has to be interpreted in the context of the prevailing organisational culture in NASA, drifting towards the acceptance of increasingly risky operations. Less than a decade later, in 2003 when the Columbia shuttle was damaged on take-off and exploded on re-entry, the accident investigation shows a similar pattern of flaws in NASA managers' decision-making in response to schedule pressure.