During the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations that had previously operated in low-risk conditions found themselves in environments where failure could be catastrophic. Using the framework of high reliability organizations (HRO), we analyze a specific case of a U.S. university taskforce charged with responding to the pandemic. We argue that the practices employed by the taskforce align with HRO principles, leading to two important theoretical contributions. First, this project highlights the utility of non-HROs using organizing principles reflective of an HRO framework. Next, this project extends HRO theorizing from a set of practices that prevent crisis to a set of communicative principles beneficial during crisis. Finally, the findings suggest practical implications for organizations during various stages of crisis.

This study replicates and extends a 2004 content analysis of three major higher education journals. The original study examined the methodological characteristics of all published research in these journals from 1996 to 2000, recommending that higher education programs adjust their graduate training to better match the heavily quantitative and statistically sophisticated journal content. We examine the same journals' content from 2006 to 2010—-one decade later—-through the lens of knowledge production in higher education, and explore the ways that dominant modes of research may legitimize and/or delegitimize various forms of inquiry. Our findings reveal a field that continues to be dominated by quantitative methods and which is increasingly using more advanced statistical techniques. We discuss the tensions of a field more aligned with federal and state priorities and therefore better positioned to influence policy, but with a concomitantly contracted scope of and approach to inquiry. We also discuss implications for the training of graduate students, professionals, and policymakers as well as implications for publishing and researching other aspects of knowledge production in higher education.

This theoretical paper proposes a framework for how citizen science can be adapted to organizational contexts. Using an “input, process, output” approach, this model proposes organizational factors (e.g., communication channels and styles, and organizational structure) that should be considered when choosing among citizen science approaches (e.g., contributory, collaborative,

This study investigates how organizational members communicatively enact identification and more specifically how tensions in identification are expressed through members’ talk and behaviors. Using a case-study approach, we explored the experiences of members in an organization in turmoil. Semi-structured interviews, questionnaires given at two times, and observations of organizational events were used to understand the identification tensions these individuals negotiated and ways that identification, disidentification, and ambivalent identification were enacted. The study provides empirical evidence of changing identifications and articulates their communicative manifestations. The findings not only support the notion that identification is a complex and dynamic process but also contribute to the identification literature by illustrating specific ways that various forms of identification tensions are enacted and communicated in response to organizational change.