The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks attributed the September 11 attacks on the U.S. homeland to the terrorists' exploitation of "deep institutional failings." These findings are similar to the conclusions of the Presidential Commission investigating the 1986 Challenger accident and the Columbia Accident Investigative Board (2003). Generally Commissions aim to provide the fullest possible account of events contributing to the catastrophe under investigation and to identify lessons learned, but avoid specifying responsibility and accountability. For this reason, various commission reports have been criticized for being abstract and shallow. These criticisms make a valid point. How commissions make sense of failures has real consequences in terms of preventing reoccurrences. If these accounts do not satisfactorily address the question, How did this happen?, clear prophylactic measures for the future also remain unspecified. This dissertation calls into question the usefulness of current constructions of system failure that focus solely on the abstract role of the institution or system in creating the conditions for failure. For the purpose of acquiring insight into our current narratives of system failure and accountability, the 9/11 Public Hearing Transcripts are analyzed. This research is a qualitative textual analysis of excerpts from the Transcripts related to both pre-9/11 intelligence failures and accountability. Using Weick's view of sensemaking to gain a better understanding of our current constructions of system failure/resilience and accountability, this research identifies the dominant constructions of pre-9/11 intelligence failures and accountability that are documented in the 9/11 Public Hearing Transcripts and the sensemaking resources that reinforce and solidify these constructions. Verbatim excerpts from the 9/11 documents are included to support claims. The theory of autopoiesis, a form of systems theory, is introduced as an alternative resource for constructing narratives on system-environment relationships and accountability. Leadership practices that foster system resilience and individual accountability for system-wide performance are presented.

Motivation In the upcoming decades, traditional firms will transition to becoming a more regenerative version, with a socio-ecological purpose at the core of the firm. In this transition phase, regenerative firms, with a focus on impact maximisation of the socio-ecological purpose and traditional firms, with a focus rather on profit maximisation, need to coexist and be resilient somehow. While in the coming decades the number of regenerative firms will grow, it is important to understand how these regenerative firms can enable organisational resilience. Yet, prior research neglects how especially inter-organisational collaboration could enhance the organisational resilience of regenerative firms. Therefore, the context of this study is within the consumer goods industry in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, focusing on regenerative firms. Purpose This study aims to shed light on how inter-organisational collaboration can strengthen the organisational resilience of regenerative firms. The first part of the research will mostly address the question how regenerative firms can strengthen organisational resilience with a focus on the capabilities needed. In addition, the study will demonstrate how regenerative firms approach and use inter-organisational collaboration. Methodology The study, with a qualitative approach, used a multi-case study design. Various people were interviewed, such as CEOs, founders, quality managers, consultants, impact officers, following a semi-structured interview design. For transcription purposes, the interviews were audio-recorded and the results from the interviews were labelled, following an open coding process. The results, with matching open codes, were then connected back to the theoretical framework. Results The results of this study indicated how inter-organisational collaboration is used to strengthen the organisational resilience of regenerative firms. Contradicting prior research about traditional firms, regenerative firms do not fear competition, yet these firms rather achieve system resilience by being resilient as a collective. Regenerative firms realise this by being transparent, absorbing and sharing knowledge to achieve success for the system they are embedded in. Sharing knowledge in a transparent manner and aiming for reciprocity among inter-organisational collaboration actors contributes positively to their system resilience. Thus, inter-organisational collaboration is a powerful tool for regenerative firms to enhance this system resilience and consequently maximising the impact of their collective socio-ecological purpose.

A notre ère de l'industrie des services, des systèmes d'information jouent une place prépondérante. Ils tiennent même parfois une position vitale pour les entreprises, les organisations et les individus. Les systèmes d'information sont confrontés à de nouvelles menaces de sécurité continuellement ; celles-ci sont de plus en plus sophistiquées et de natures différentes. Dans ce contexte, il est important d'empêcher les attaquants d'atteindre leurs résultats, de gérer les failles inévitables et de minimiser leurs impacts. Les pratiques de sécurité doivent être menées dans un cadre d'ingénierie ; l'ingénierie de la sécurité doit être améliorée. Pour cela, il est proposé de développer des approches systémiques, innovantes sur de larges spectres et qui fonctionnent sur plusieurs axes ensemble, en améliorant l'expérience utilisateur. Notre objectif est de traquer et résoudre de façon conjointe les problèmes de la sécurité, de l'utilisabilité et de la résilience dans les systèmes d'information d'entreprise. Dans cette thèse, nous positionnons les systèmes sociotechniques au regard des systèmes d'information des entreprises et des organisations. Nous traitons les paradigmes de systèmes sociotechniques et nous nous recentrons sur les corrélations entre la sécurité, l’utilisabilité et la résilience. Une étude de cas illustre l'approche proposée. Elle présente l'élaboration de design patterns (modèles de conception) pour améliorer l'expérience utilisateur. La thèse se termine par une discussion globale de l’approche, ainsi que par des perspectives de recherche. / In our era of the service industry, information systems play a prominent role. They even hold a vital position for businesses, organizations and individuals. Information systems are confronted with new security threats on an ongoing basis; these threats become more and more sophisticated and of different natures. In this context, it is important to prevent attackers from achieving their results, to manage the inevitable flaws, and to minimize their impacts. Security practices must be carried out within an engineering framework; Security engineering needs to be improved. To do this, it is proposed to develop systemic approaches, innovative on wide spectra and that work on several axes together, improving the user experience. Our goal is to jointly track down and resolve issues of security, usability and resiliency in enterprise information systems. In this doctoral thesis, we position sociotechnical systems in relation to the information systems of companies and organizations. We address paradigms of sociotechnical systems and refocus on the correlations between security, usability and resilience. A case study illustrates the proposed approach. It presents the development of design patterns to improve the user experience. The thesis concludes with an overall discussion of the approach, as well as research perspectives.