"We were always re-organizing...": some crisis management implications of the Exxon Valdez oil spill

The confusion and conflict surrounding the evolution of the Exxon Valdez spill response organization are described. The organizational impacts of post-Exxon Valdez initiatives are identified and a comparison is made of the organizational structures specified by the several federal crisis management plans. Research results in the fields of crisis management, organizational design, and organizational decision making are used to develop recommendations for improving the ability to organize for response. The authors show that responders must resolve three conflicting goals: anticipating the phenomena of emergent organization; cooperating with diverse stakeholders; and creating a high performing, decision focused organization. Contingency planners developing organizational structures, however, typically pursue the concept of organizational control rather than the goal of effective decision making. This type of planning increases the probability that not only will an emergent organization evolve as it did in the case of the Exxon Valdez, but that it will be unanticipated and unmanageable.