Published works

Organisations increasingly find themselves responding to unprecedented natural disasters that are experienced as complex, unpredictable, and harmful. We examine how organisations make sense and learn from these novel experiences by examining three Australian bushfires. We show how sensemaking and learning occurred during the public inquiries that followed these events, as well as how learning continued afterward with the help of “learning cues.” We propose a model that links public inquiry activities to changes in organisational practices. Given the interesting times in which we live, this model has important implications for future research on how new organisational practices can be enacted after public inquiries have concluded their work.

This article is available as a free download.