ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to help stimulate greater effectiveness in dealing with disasters as a problem area. It describes 'disaster realities' which contrast with 'managerial beliefs'. The chapter makes a case for the inclusion of these 'contradictory-to-belief-realities' in managerial decisional processes within organizations. A discussion around these beliefs and realities is undertaken in the context of the Hillsborough Football Stadium disaster which occurred in 1989. Change in the entertainment industry has produced a situation where many football clubs do not have resources with which to improve stadium safety. The soccer industry has a history of disasters. Despite this history, little regard seems to have been paid to pre-match warnings about Hillsborough crowd allocation policy. Disasters often have an economic and social cost trade-off dimension. They often occur in systems where insufficient resources had been expended on regulation, infrastructure and plant and machinery and where organization which gives rise to disaster is working under tight budgetary constraints and a worsening market position.
