A Cold Pot Does Not Boil: A Case Study Of The Virginia Beach City Municipal Center Shooting To Understand Disgruntled Employee Violence

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Bynum, K. (2021). A Cold Pot Does Not Boil: A Case Study Of The Virginia Beach City Municipal Center Shooting To Understand Disgruntled Employee Violence. Unc Charlotte Electronic Theses And Dissertations.
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Abstract

The phenomenon of the violent disgruntled employee is a symptom of increasing mass violence in the U.S. Previous literature on mass violence in the workplace is mostly based on the individual psychologization of attackers. This case study is a reaction to the need for organizational leaders and scholars to critically address (1) the relationship between institutional environments and the development of violence, and (2) why pre-attack behaviors fail to trigger risk response thresholds in some organizations. This study of the Virginia Beach City Municipal Center workplace shooting ends with a discussion of a new approach to understand the cultural, structural, and larger socioeconomic influences that contributed to a violent outcome. The analysis uses high-reliability organizational theory as a central framework to understand how sensemaking within the organizational culture of Virginia Beach City enabled the conditions for violence to occur, and for the pre-attack warning signs to be missed. A focus on organizational culture departs from the dominant focus on individual risk factors and implicates a new critical exploration of how organizational culture can provoke or enable workplace violence in bureaucratic organizations.

Details
Author

Bynum, Karly

Title

A Cold Pot Does Not Boil: A Case Study Of The Virginia Beach City Municipal Center Shooting To Understand Disgruntled Employee Violence

Physical Description

1 online resource (112 pages) : PDF

Date

2021

Degree Granting Institution

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Abstract

The phenomenon of the violent disgruntled employee is a symptom of increasing mass violence in the U.S. Previous literature on mass violence in the workplace is mostly based on the individual psychologization of attackers. This case study is a reaction to the need for organizational leaders and scholars to critically address (1) the relationship between institutional environments and the development of violence, and (2) why pre-attack behaviors fail to trigger risk response thresholds in some organizations. This study of the Virginia Beach City Municipal Center workplace shooting ends with a discussion of a new approach to understand the cultural, structural, and larger socioeconomic influences that contributed to a violent outcome. The analysis uses high-reliability organizational theory as a central framework to understand how sensemaking within the organizational culture of Virginia Beach City enabled the conditions for violence to occur, and for the pre-attack warning signs to be missed. A focus on organizational culture departs from the dominant focus on individual risk factors and implicates a new critical exploration of how organizational culture can provoke or enable workplace violence in bureaucratic organizations.

Genre

masters theses

Subjects--Topics

Organizational sociology

Degree

M.A.

Keywords

Bureaucracy
Mass Shooting
Organizational Culture
Reliability
Sensemaking
Workplace Violence

Subject Area

Communication Studies

Advisor(s)

Scott, Cliff

Committee Members

Grano, Daniel
Norander, Stephanie

Degree Note

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2021.

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Rights Holder Information

Copyright is held by the author unless otherwise indicated.

Identifier

Bynum_uncc_0694N_12835

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13093/etd:2389