Organizational Theory Applied to the Challenger Disaster

Groupthink has had a negative role in many organizations ability to make rational and ethical decisions. The Challenger disaster is no different, in fact its outcome was more serious than most. The Challenger disaster was caused by Groupthink, specifically the pressure that management was subjected to, which was then forced upon the engineers. <Tab/>The symptoms of Groupthink were clearly the downfall of the Challenger disaster. By analyzing these symptoms we …

…if they do not feel comfortable launching regardless of if they have concrete information or not management needs to trust their decision and support what they say. <Tab/>Although serious tragedy has plagued the NASA program this has made them aware of the organizational theories that must be implemented in group discussion and problem solving. All of these theories have been expressed and explained throughout our analysis of the Challenger case.