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From Publishers Weekly
The loss of the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986 is usually ascribed to NASA's decision to accept a safety risk to meet a launch schedule. Vaughan, a professor of sociology at Boston College, argues instead that the disaster's roots are to be found in the nature of institutional life. Organizations develop cultural beliefs that shape action and outcome, she notes. NASA's institutional history and group dynamics reflected a perception of competition for scarce resources, which fostered a structure that accepted risk-taking and corner-cutting as norms that shaped decision-making. Small, seemingly harmless modifications to technical and procedural standards collectively propelled the space agency toward disaster even though no specific rules were broken. While Vaughan's complex presentation will daunt general readers, her conclusion that the "normalization of deviance" builds error into all human systems is as compelling as it is pessimistic.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Booklist
Had Margaret Mead studied the NASAns instead of the Samoans, this anthropological story of the shuttle catastrophe might have resulted. We see the bureaucratic culture that shaped the behavior of the rocket scientists: they launched Challenger expecting some damage to the now infamous O-rings. How they reached that position of tempting fate infuses Vaughan's account. Making arguable constructions about the engineering mentality and group-think, Vaughan focuses on the fateful teleconference the night before the launch, in which executives of the rocket manufacturer first resisted then caved into NASA's pressure to launch. For exerting that pressure, the space agency's managers were pilloried, but personalizing the blame, Vaughan believes, ignores the acculturated rules they followed--which emanated from the political and funding compromises that created the shuttle design. Though Vaughan's scholastic diction acts as narrative speed bumps, her sociological interpretation helps explain the seemingly inexplicable. This complements the dramatic and popular orientation of No Downlink, by Claus Jensen . Gilbert Taylor
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NASA's Space Shuttle Challenger originally was scheduled for launch January 22, 1986. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
NASA's Space Shuttle Challenger originally was scheduled for launch January 22, 1986. Read the first page
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Institutions Create and Condone Risk,
By
This review is from: The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA (Hardcover)
The Space Shuttle Challenger exploded on January 28, 1986. To millions of viewers, it is a moment they will never forget. Official inquiries into the accident placed the blame with a "frozen, brittle O ring." In this book, Diane Vaughan, a Boston College Professor of Sociology, does not stop there. In what I think is a brilliant piece of research, she traces the threads of the disaster's roots to fabric of NASA's institutional life and culture. NASA saw itself competing for scarce resources. This fostered a culture that accepted risk-taking and corner-cutting as norms that shaped decision-making. Small, seemingly harmless modifications to technical and procedural standards propelled the space agency toward the disaster. No specific rules were broken, yet well-intentioned people produced great harm. Vaughan often resorts to an academic writing style, yet there is no confusion about its conclusion. "The explanation of the Challenger launch is a story of how people who worked together developed patterns that blinded them to the consequences of their actions," wrote Dr. Vaughan. "It is not only about the development of norms but about the incremental expansion of normative boundaries: how small changes--new behaviors that were slight deviations from the normal course of events- gradually became the norm, providing a basis for accepting additional deviance. Nor rules were violated; there was no intent to do harm. Yet harm was done. Astronauts died." For project and risk managers, this book offers a rare warning of the hazards of working in structured and institutionalized environments.
5.0 out of 5 stars
great analysis-must read for managers in high risk industry,
By William L. Johnson "williamljohnson" (League City, TX United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)
This review is from: The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA (Paperback)
This is the most comprehensive, thorough and believable analysis of the Challenger shuttle disaster that is available. Diane Vaughn goes far beyond the newspaper accounts or even the capitol hill hearings and really gets to the root causes of this incident found in the management culture of NASA and contractors. I would definitely recommend this to anyone involved in managing risk whether in the aircraft / aerospace industry or any other fundamentally risky industry (refining, chemical manufacturing, construction, etc...)
3.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating account, tortured writing,
By GST "Reader" (Santiago) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA (Paperback)
Penetrating account of the organizational causes of the Challenger disaster. The author shows that the engineering mistake that led to the disaster was not the result of intentional wrongdoing ("amoral calculator" thesis = managers overruling engineers due to economic and/or political pressures) but that quite on the contrary that the NASA and contractor teams played by the rulebook to a fault and that the mistake was "systematic and socially organized". A must read for everybody interested in organizational dynamics or in how to manage risk in the development of technological innovations.Given the fascinating subject matter and revisionist thesis it's a pity that the writing is very uneven. Most of the "thick description" of the decisions around the booster joint from the early design days to the post-mortem by the Presidential Commission is quite readable. This core of the text, however, is embedded in an unbearably repetitive and plodding overall narrative flow (the account could probably be reduced in length by 50%) which in places degenerates into (sociological?) opaque language. Taking a cue from the author's concept of "structural secrecy" (things are hidden not on purpose but due to organizational compartmentalization), the argument of the book loses a lot of its force due to the undisciplined way of telling it; the author could profit from a strong editor.
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