Decision-making in the Context of a Crisis: A Selected Review

In the 21st century, organisations have to face pressing “big challenges” (George et al., 2016). These can include adverse events such as global pandemics and climate change. The impacts of these adverse events lead organisations and decision-makers to adopt new behaviours. Although these adverse events are inevitable, organisations do not respond in the same ways, and some organisations are better able to withstand and re cover from such shocks than others (Van der Vegt et.al, 2015). High-risk events that at first appear to cause only local and isolated effects, can multiply in intensity and damage vital infrastructure, affecting events on a national or global scale. McFarlane and Norris (2006, p. 4) defined an adverse event as “a potentially traumatic event that is experienced col lectively, has an acute onset, and is limited in time; it can be attributed to natural, technological or human causes”. An adverse event is caused by factors external to the system, unforeseen, and requiring immediate action. Examples include hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes and pan demics. The traditional way of dealing with adverse events is to devel op approaches and systems to identify risks. Now, scholars are shifting their attention from identifying and mitigating risk to attempting to in crease resilience (Sutcliffe & Vogus, 2003). The term “resilience” almost always has the positive connotation of flexibility and strengthening: The desired result is better than the preparation needed to face disruptive unexpected events. The purpose of this study is to understand the impact of strategic choic es in response to adverse events on the life of organisations. Specifical ly, when their responses to adverse events occur in a non-adaptive or non-resilient way (inertia). In order to understand this, we based this study on a review of the literature specifically linked to adverse events and the way in which it is possible to confront them.