ah, a topic related to organizational decay and decline. this is an area I've been studying a lot over the last few years, and I encourage the author of this blog post to read this paper on the Challenger disaster.
> There are a number of aspects of organizational decay. In this paper, I shall consider three of them. First is what I call the institutionalization of the fiction, which represents the redirection of its approved beliefs and discourse, from the acknowledgement of reality to the maintenance of an image of itself as the organization ideal. Second is the change in personnel that parallels the institutionalization of the fiction. Third is the narcissistic loss of reality which represents the mental state of management in the decadent organization.
> Discouragement and alienation of competent individuals
> Another result of this sort of selection must be that realistic and competent persons who are committed to their work must lose the belief that the organization's real purpose is productive work and come to the conclusion that its real purpose is self-idealization. They then are likely to see their work as being alien to the purposes of the organization. Some will withdraw from the organization psychologically. Others will buy into the nonsense around them, cynically or through self-deception (Goffman, 1959), and abandon their concern with reality. Still others will conclude that the only way to save their self-esteem is to leave the organization. Arguably, it is these last individuals who, because of their commitment to productive work and their firm grasp of reality, are the most productive members of the organization. Trento cites a number of examples of this happening at NASA. Considerations of space preclude detailed discussion here.
Schwartz, H.S., 1989. Organizational disaster and organizational decay: the case of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Industrial Crisis Quarterly, 3: 319-334.
Organizational disaster and organizational decay: the case of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration http://www.sba.oakland.edu/faculty/schwartz/Org%20Decay%20at...
some highlights:
> There are a number of aspects of organizational decay. In this paper, I shall consider three of them. First is what I call the institutionalization of the fiction, which represents the redirection of its approved beliefs and discourse, from the acknowledgement of reality to the maintenance of an image of itself as the organization ideal. Second is the change in personnel that parallels the institutionalization of the fiction. Third is the narcissistic loss of reality which represents the mental state of management in the decadent organization.
> Discouragement and alienation of competent individuals
> Another result of this sort of selection must be that realistic and competent persons who are committed to their work must lose the belief that the organization's real purpose is productive work and come to the conclusion that its real purpose is self-idealization. They then are likely to see their work as being alien to the purposes of the organization. Some will withdraw from the organization psychologically. Others will buy into the nonsense around them, cynically or through self-deception (Goffman, 1959), and abandon their concern with reality. Still others will conclude that the only way to save their self-esteem is to leave the organization. Arguably, it is these last individuals who, because of their commitment to productive work and their firm grasp of reality, are the most productive members of the organization. Trento cites a number of examples of this happening at NASA. Considerations of space preclude detailed discussion here.
Schwartz, H.S., 1989. Organizational disaster and organizational decay: the case of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Industrial Crisis Quarterly, 3: 319-334.