“System Stress and the Persistence of Emergent Organizations”: A Comment

Abstract

The Perry et al. (1974) article, "System Stress and the Persistence of Emergent Organizations," was interesting and informative. The use of the Neighbors in Need (NIN) as an emergent organization and economic change in the aerospace industry as the disaster type was somewhat unique and probably a first in sociological studies of disaster. The article, however, suggests more questions than it resolves and does little to remedy some of the major defects in the disaster literature which the authors recognize and then dismiss.First, how can the disaster literature be raised to an analytical base using a descriptive case study? The authors claimed that they were developing a model, but it is not enough just to suggest a few hypotheses from a case study and call the work analytical because this is what most disaster researchers have done. Yet Perry et al. claim that disaster research has been descriptive but state that their work should be considered analytical. How can this be?Second, how can prediction be "facilitated" by using case study techniques to corroborate hypotheses? Is prediction a goal for future research or is it mentioned in the article for some other purpose? Prediction does not seem to be facilitated merely by restating a few hypotheses already found in the literature.Third, did the authors develop their model and then seek data to corroborate it, or did they develop their model after doing the case work? The statement of procedure does not appear to be clear, but the question is important because the stated purpose was to build a model. We are concerned with how this model was built.The authors (1974: 112) note that "most existing research conclusions apply to emergent organizations in a single type of disaster setting." They further suggest that sociologists should be concerned with emergent organizations in differing disasters (flood, tornadoes, etc.) so that a theory might be developed to apply to all disasters where the responses are similar. We heartily concur, burnt we wish the authors of the article had addressed themselves to this issue rather than merely bringing it up and then dismissing it.Perry er al. (1974: 112) further state that an answer to the question of whether different disaster types will impose constraints on social behiavior and organizational emergence will "lift the disaster literature from its descriptive stage to an analytical stage." Certainly, a lofty goal would be lifting the disaster literature from its descriptive base, but the article appears to be based on descriptions of one disaster type and one organization. The only saving grace, as far as we are concerned, is that it explicitly lists several hypotheses. Will this lift disaster literature to an analytical base? We think not! The authors note that hypotheses regarding emergent organizations exist in the sociological disaster literature, and they point to Killian (1962), Smelser (1963) and Turner (1964). If this is true, then why not test these hypotheses and build theory based on empirical data? The disaster liter...