Coupling

Crises do not emerge out of the blue. More often than not, in retrospect, we are able to acknowledge a series of events that led a specific crisis to happen. Exogenous and endogenous factors are usually combined in the enactment and development of social crises. Although some crises might be produced by a single technological malfunction, a natural disaster, a human mistake, or a planned misconduct, other crises can be the result of all these factors combined in unexpected and hazardous ways. It is important to note that the effects produced by a crisis cannot be reduced to the elements that compose it.

To understand how a social crisis is produced and to find ways to manage it effectively, it is important to identify the elements involved in the crisis and the ways in which these elements are linked to each other. The components that take part in a crisis may be human in nature (e.g., individuals, groups, organizations, or larger communities) or nonhuman (e.g., technological devices or environmental conditions). The ways in which the constitutive elements of any given crisis are “coupled” will largely determine the crisis's nature and scale of impact.

Let us propose an example. Multiple factors were involved in the loss of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986. The incident was instantly captured by the media. A few seconds after the Challenger was launched, thousands of eager spectators were able to see the smoke trail left by the disintegrated spacecraft and, with it, the vanishing of hopes built around this nationwide project. How did this happen? How is it possible for such a catastrophic event not to be anticipated, even by experts? Mixed signals provided by environmental conditions, technological failures, political pressures, and organizational mistakes led the highly trained engineers and scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to make a wrong decision that, in this case, led to fatal consequences. Probably, none of these factors, by itself, was particularly harmful; it was the combination, or “coupling,” between all of them that led to a disastrous outcome of incalculable qualitative and quantitative losses. This example shows that the higher the number of components involved in a disaster, the higher the level of complexity of the disaster and the more difficult it is to identify a single factor as responsible for its occurrence.

In addition, the kinds of couplings, or “linkages,” between the components involved in a crisis play a crucial role in determining the nature and scale of its effects. We distinguish here two types of couplings: loose or tight couplings. The term loosely coupled is commonly used to describe complex assemblages whose components are only weakly connected; that is, they interact in diverse ways and are capable of more autonomous actions. A research consortium that lacks a legitimate authority and that promotes an equal participation among its members could be seen as an example of a “loosely coupled” arrangement or organization. The fact that this kind of organization does not stipulate a unique way of functioning might give rise to a higher fluidity of ideas, with more flexibility to test and improve those ideas and possibly open higher opportunities to make mistakes, than would be encouraged under a highly strict form of organization. The term tight coupling, in contrast, refers to highly interconnected parts in which the malfunctioning of some parts may lead to major crises or disasters. An army organized in a highly hierarchical form, for instance, could be seen as an example of a tightly coupled organization, in which slight changes (e.g., failure to convey or obey a command) might have strong repercussions in the system as a whole. In this kind of organization, we can imagine a superior saying to his subordinate: “Here, there is only one way of doing things.” Any deviation from the formal line of command may give rise to mistakes or disasters of incalculable [Page 184]dimensions that can put at risk the well-being of all organizational members, especially under situations of high pressure.

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