Toward an attention-based view of crises

Abstract

This article develops the attention-based view of crises. Crises implicate the failure of structures that shape attention throughout a system and initiate attempts to transform these structures. As crises are so influential, case studies of crisis provide rich details from which to build theory. Synthesizing insights from 80 qualitative case studies of crises, we build a theoretical framework that revitalizes scholarly understanding of how structure and attention relate in today’s complex systems. This framework reveals how everyday social practices instantiate structure, compose systems, and shape the quality of attention, such that practices constitute both a source and solution to crises. Understanding the systemic nature of attention through practices might therefore advance our collective capacity to face crises. It also contributes more broadly to ongoing conversations about how to apply the attention-based view in today’s world, where important organizations look less and less like traditional big businesses, notions of structure implied by formal organization charts are diminishingly relevant, and the quality of attention matters more than its quantity.