Call for Papers
Organization Science – Special Issue on Learning from Rare Events: How
Organisations Learn (or Fail to Learn) from Unusual Experiences
Guest Editors: Joseph Lampel, City University, London; Jamal Shamsie,
Michigan State University; Zur Shapira, New York University.
Organisations that go through rare if not unprecedented events face the
challenge of interpreting and learning from these experiences. Responding
effectively to rare events requires decision makers at different levels to
understand how these events impact their goals and responsibilities. The
challenge is to avoid superficial lessons and when appropriate use these
events as an impetus to pursue fundamental change. The Special Issue
welcomes submissions from researchers who are interested in how
organisations, institutions, communities, and networks can learn from rare
events. With this in mind, we encourage submissions that focus on the
following issues:
• How are rare events constituted in the life of organizations,
institutions, and societies?
• How do organizations, institutions, and societies detect, interpret, and
react to rare events?
• What processes shape learning from rare events?
• What differences exist in the way that centrally directed organizations
and institutions learn from rare events as opposed to decentralized social
systems such as networks and societies?
• What are the economic, social, political, and cognitive concomitants of
learning (or not learning) from rare events?
• What are the challenges of learning from rare as opposed to more
frequently experienced events?
• What differences exist between first-hand learning from rare events, as
opposed to learning from observation and historical analysis of such
events?
• How do different actors – governments, communities, firms, networks –
shape the learning agenda in the aftermath of rare events?
• What are the empirical and methodological problems of studying rare
events?
To be considered for publication completed manuscripts plus supplementary
files should be submitted electronically via
http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/orgsci, between February 1, 2007 and
February 28, 2007.