A Structural Perspective on the Emergence of Network Organizations

A network analytic approach to the study of organizational response to crises is used to determine the existence and form of integrated crisis management units (ICMU). ICMUs are network organizations that emerge in response to severe crises such as major oil spills, earthquakes, hurricanes and other natural and man made disasters. Although ICMUs have received considerable attention from scholars in the form of empirical case studies, much remains unclear as to their nascent interorganizational structure and structural evolution. In this paper, we outline a network analytic framework for the study of ICMUs and demonstrate how some of the predictions of previous research can be more rigorously quantified and compared. We then apply our framework to the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. The Valdez case study provides an illustration of the analytic framework and suggests some interesting directions for further research on emergent organizational forms. Results demonstrate (1) the emergence of a network organization which grew more complex and more centralized over time, (2) the vulnerability of emergent structures to after shocks, and (3) the structuration of the organizational field through coordination of multiple network organizations, despite fluctuation in peripheral groups of stakeholder organizations.