Of Latent Errors and Organizational Crisis: Types, Conditions, and Implications

Abstract

Analysis of major organizational crisis incidents”regardless of the nature of the industries in which it occurs”has consistently found that latent errors play a massive role in the events leading up to the actual incident. Latent errors are deviations or the existence of gaps between what is and what should be without no immediate adverse consequences. Though well known to practitioners, its persistence even in today's organization is somewhat perplexing. The focus of this paper is to define latent errors, identify types of latent errors, conditions whereby it becomes rampant in the system, and its role in organizational crisis in the hope that practitioners can minimize its occurrences thereby lengthening the dormancy period. This was achieved through the use of grounded theory approach on the collapse of Barings Bank in Singapore (1995), the sinking of the MV Princess Ashika (2009) in Tonga, and other disasters found in the literature.