Organizational change in risky environments: space activities

Purpose – The adaptation perspective dominates the issue of organizational change and assumes that organizational inertia increases organizational mortality. This assumption is inadequate to analyze organizational change in risky activities. The purpose of this paper is to underline the relevance of organizational inertia when organizations face risky environments. Design/methodology/approach – A conceptual framework was built that combines the adaptation and selection perspectives from the evolutionary approach and the high‐reliability organizations literature and apply it to space activities. Findings – First, it was found that to prevent catastrophic failures, space organizations reproduce routines validated in previous successful programs, which leads to situations of organizational inertia; and second, the opposing perspectives of selection and adaptation become complementary when the author focus on the level of risk faced by organizations. Research limitations/implications – This paper focuses on space organizations and not more general types of organizations. However, the findings could be generalized to organizations manufacturing complex products and systems. Originality/value – The originality of the paper is based on the new empirical and theoretical frameworks provided to analyze organizational inertia. Organizational inertia may be a satisfying response to environments favoring organizations with high levels of reliability. This new way of viewing inertia would be of value to scholars studying organizations in which errors can have catastrophic consequences.