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Collaborative elasticity and breakdowns in high reliability organizations: contributions from distributed cognition and collective mind theory

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Abstract

Collaborative elasticity is the capability of a collective to sustain coherence and sufficient order, even when encountering unexpected and adverse operating conditions. This capability is increasingly important in today’s dynamic and time-pressed world. Drawing on distributed cognition and collective mind theory, this conceptual paper presents a taxonomy of six dimensions that determine collaborative elasticity and may explain organizational breakdowns: individual cognition, relating and relationships, repertoire of routines, knowledge for collaboration, organizational roles and communications. The paper focuses on High Reliability Organizations (HRO) where people work with advanced technologies and routinely face potential danger. The objective of this conceptual paper is to explore why these organizations have to operate elastically, and what may cause them to breakdown. The findings support practitioners involved in HROs. For researchers, the study defines and frames the concept of collaborative elasticity using distributed cognition and collective mind theory. The paper concludes with pointers for further research.

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Notes

  1. ‘Collaborators’ are defined here as people who work together on interrelated tasks with the same overarching goal.

  2. ‘Collective’ is a broader concept than ‘organization’ or ‘group’ (Weick and Roberts 1993). It could refer to an organization or organizational unit in the traditional sense (Scott 1992). It also refers to an ad hoc aggregation of individuals contributing to a common activity, like Air Traffic Control, and disaster mitigation groups (Smith and Dowell 2000).

  3. Success is here not defined in terms of mission completion, but the safely returning of the crew.

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Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Kuldeep Kumar, Kevin Crowston and colleagues at the Rotterdam School of Management for general discussions on this paper’s topic. Specifically I want to thank Cristina Chisalita, Peter H. Jones, and participants of the Second International Workshop on Analyzing Collaborative Activity (Amsterdam, 2003) for their thought provoking questions, discussions and insights. Funding for this research was provided by the Erasmus Research Institute for Management, Rotterdam School of Management, and Florida International University.

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    Paul C. van Fenema

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van Fenema, P.C. Collaborative elasticity and breakdowns in high reliability organizations: contributions from distributed cognition and collective mind theory. Cogn Tech Work 7, 134–140 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10111-005-0181-7

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