Adapting to environmental jolts.
This paper examines organizational adaptations to an environmental jolt--a sudden and unprecedented event (in this case, a doctors' strike)-- that created a natural experiment within a group of hospitals. Although adaptations were diverse and appeared anomalous, they are elucidated by considering the hospitals' antecedent strategies, structures, ideologies, and stockpiles of slack resources. Assessments of the primacy of the antecedents suggest that ideological and strategic variables are better predictors of adaptations to jolts than are structural variables or measures of organizational slack. Although abrupt changes in environments are commonly thought to jeopardize organizations, environmental jolts are found to be ambiguous events that offer propitious opportunities for organizational learning, administrative drama, and introducing unrelated changes.
D002140:California; D006739:Hospital Administration; D006744:Hospital Bed Capacity, 100 to 299; D006745:Hospital Bed Capacity, 300 to 499; D006788:Hospitals, Voluntary / Q000458:organization & administration*; D008505:Medical Staff, Hospital; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009934:Organization and Administration; D009936:Organizational Innovation; D013317:Strikes, Employee