ABSTRACT
The expected and the unexpected are not entities in themselves but are ‘produced’ by and from the perspective of an observer, either an organization, an employee or a team. Thus, the unexpected can only be understood in relation to an observer. For unexpected situations that long for a long-term reaction only, organizations will have enough time to search for additional information, calculate by sophisticated analysis methods and plan in-depth. For simple and complicated projects, risk management is sufficient. Risk is, at least in principle, calculable, and predictions can be expressed by a statistically or mathematically determined probability. High-reliability organizing has originally focused on safety-critical environments only and on absolute reliability: Well-known application fields are nuclear power plants, aircraft carriers and air traffic control systems. Research on resilient organizing concentrates on emergency and rescue crews, police and SWAT units, military forces and similar groups.
