The year of the rabbit

Abstract

This article tells of an unsuccessful fight for the survival of a University OR department, from the point of view of two participants. Like, perhaps, the doctor with a ‘professional’ interest in his own demise, we find ourselves drawn to examine our own case for points of more general interest to Management Science. Failures can be instructive (as well as entertaining) - especially when decision-making systems produce unwelcome and unintended results in the absence of (at least obvious) individual malevolence or stupidity. Though we cannot claim to have tested alternative theories in any controlled way, some ideas in the literature seem relevant. One is the ‘garbage can’ model of organisations, and another concerns responses to organisational decline (‘Exit and Voice’). The main point of each are summarised in boxes A and B. Both have been helpful in making sense of events, some of which made little sense at the time. We therefore offer the story, and the ideas, in the hope that others may find them helpful too.