The role of organizational culture and values in the performance of critical infrastructure systems

Civil infrastructures are vital to a nation´s economy and quality of life because modern economies rely on the ability to move goods, people, and information safely and reliably. It is therefore of utmost importance that the flow of services they provide continue unimpeded despite a broad range of hazards. This linkage between systems and services is critical: for although infrastructures may be discussed in terms of hardware, it is the services they provide that are of real value to the public. Definitions of infrastructures should therefore include institutions and people in addition to technological artifacts. This paper explores linkages between physical systems and the organizations and social networks that support them. Drawing on various examples, including the loss of two space shuttles, the September 11, 2001 attacks, and the 2003 northeast power blackout, it demonstrates that organizational culture and values are critical to the reliability and resiliency of infrastructure systems