Escape from a Mine Fire: Emergent Perspective and Work Group Behavior

Abstract

Fire (destructive burning on a scale that threatens serious harm) is an important sociotechnical problem. This article analyzes miner responses to a 1988 coal mine fire from a symbolic interaction perspective. Lengthy qualitative interviews were conducted with 21 miners caught in the blaze studied. The data show that workplace culture (e.g.,the buddy system) conditions participant responses to a fire emergency and, in the case of miners, largely facilitates their efficient and effective escape to safety. The orientation shift away from routine work behavior into the short-term perspective associated with an emergency is problematic. Theoretical implications for organizational behavior and practical implications for mine safety are discussed.

Understanding GDSS in Symbolic Context: Shifting the Focus from Technology to Interaction

“…We use symbolic interaction to study GDSS use by teachers in a western Canadian school. Symbolic interaction is a long-standing methodological tradition in sociology and social psychology (Blumer 1969;Fine 1990;Hewitt 1988) that has recently been imported into various fields of management including organizational behavior (Vaught and Wiehagen 1991), organizational change (Prasad 1993), and consumer research (Solomon 1983). It is part of the intellectual tradition best characterized as interpretivism.…”

Patterns of ‘Mock Bureaucracy’ in Mining Disasters: An Analysis of the Westray Coal Mine Explosion

“…Other more enduring explanations can be found by adopting a`cultural theory of risk perception' (Douglas and Wildavsky, 1982) which examines how dierent groups in organizations and societies pay attention to dierent risks and, in fact, frame dierent phenomena as being risky, dangerous or otherwise. Within this framework, miners' orientations towards hazardous working conditions can best be understood by looking at the cultural traditions designated as an`occupational subculture of danger' (Vaught and Wiehagen, 1991) found frequently in underground mines. Studies examining social interactions within coal mines indicate that the shared sense of danger substantially in¯uences the development of sub-cultural values and expectations among miners (Fitzpatrick, 1974;Vaught and Smith, 1980).…”

“…In general, the organizational crises literature looks at four major issues. These include the antecedents of crises (Milburn et al, 1983;Pauchant and Mitro, 1992;Perrow, 1984;Shrivastava, 1987), organizational responses to crises, or what Pauchant and Mitro (1992) label`crash management' (Dunbar and Goldberg, 1978;Shrivastava, 1987;Trotter et al, 1989), consequences of organizational crises (Milburn et al, 1983;Marcus et al, 1987), and organizational sensemaking during and after crisis situations (Gephart, 1993;Vaught and Wiehagen, 1991;Weick, 1988).…”

High-Reliability Organizing (HRO) in the COVID-19 Liminal Zone: Characteristics of Workers and Local Leaders

“…Leadership in dangerous contexts and the liminal zone is local, an ephemeral nature rapidly shifting between those with local information and those with knowledge for action (personal observation of the authors; (36)). This type of leadership supports selforganization during the event and the necessary improvisation to generate solutions (18).…”