Challenger Disaster
The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster was a preventable disaster that NASA tried to cover up by calling it a mysterious accident. However, two men had the courage to bring the real true story to the eyes of the public and it is to Richard Cook and Roger Boisjoly to whom we are thankful. Many lessons can be learned from this disaster to help prevent further disasters and to improve on organizations ethics. One of the many key topics behind the Challenger disaster is the organizational culture. One of the aspects of an organizational culture is the observable culture of an organization that is what one sees and hears when walking around an organization. There are four parts to the observable culture, stories, heroes, rites and rituals and symbols. The first one is stories, which is tales told among an organization’s members. In the Challenger Space Shuttle incident there were mainly four organizations thrown together to form one, Morton Thiokol, Marshall Space Flight Center, Johnson Space Center and NASA Headquarters. All of these organizations had the same type of stories to be told. At Morton Thiokol, they talked about their product and their big deal, which they received from NASA. At NASA, it’s members retold stories of the previous space missions and being the first people to have landed on the moon. Second are their heroes. At Morton Thiokol, their heroes might have been the founders of the organization or it’s top executives like Charles Locke or Jerry Mason. At NASA, their heroes might have been Neil Armstrong, staff or any members of the organization. All of these people that were chosen to be heroes set the standards for that organization and conducted themselves for others to follow. Third are the rites and rituals those members of an organization conduct. Since both of these organizations work together to attain the same goal, a ritual for the organization is the celebration after each successful launch and landing of a space shuttle. A rite or...
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