When does the phoenix rise? Factors and mechanisms that influence crisis-induced learning by public organizations

Abstract

Crises

can disrupt entire societies and severely affect the lives of the people within

them. If a crisis occurs, citizens and other societal actors expect governments

to learn from it in order to prevent the terrible events from happening again in the future, or, at least to be able to respond more effectively to them the next time. However, government organizations generally seem to have major difficulties in learning from crises. Nevertheless, every now and then, they do manage to learn extensively, and change their protocols, implement new policies, open up the organization’s culture, establish new organizational units, introduce training and simulation exercises, or improve communication. Why is it that public organizations sometimes learn from a crisis, but other times do not? The work reported reveals the major factors and mechanisms that explain crisis-induced learning by public organizations. The research draws on data from crisis management documents and interviews with employees of the Dutch food safety services (NVWA) related to four veterinary crises; EU legislation, evaluation reports, newspaper articles, and reports of national and EU parliamentary debates following four major oil spillages; 114 post-crisis evaluation reports in response to 60 crises in the Netherlands; and a survey of Dutch mayors.