NASA, or the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to give it its full title, is a truly remarkableorganization. Founded by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1958 as a civilian agency of the US government, it is dedicated to space exploration as well as aeronautics and aerospace research and development. Just eleven years after its formation, NASA had achieved the incredible feat of landing human beings on the surface of the moonand has since gone on to launch the Skylab Space Station, develop the Space Shuttle, support the construction and development of the International Space Station, and is currently working towards the proposed Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle and other innovative next-generation projects.

Given its staggering successes, NASA has quite rightly gained a reputation for being one of the most pioneering and inventiveorganizationsin the world. Of course, much of this can be attributed to sheer financial power, with an annual budget of $19 billion in 2016, which is 0.5%of the US federal budget. At the height of the Cold War "space race" in the 1960s, the NASA budget accounted for as much as 4.5% of US federal government expenditure. But despite theunquestionabletalent and money at NASA's disposal, theirorganizationalmanagement structure must also be credited for synergizing the prodigious skill and knowledge within the agency and creating an organizational culture which fosters innovation.

NASA is often held up as the prototypical example of an adhocracy. Rather than a bureaucracy of strict processes and regulations, relatively autonomous project teams are formed to complete certain tasks,which allows theorganizationto work more flexibly, nimbly, and efficiently. However, as the NBC news article in our casestudy demonstrates, following the Challenger and Columbia Space Shuttle disasters in 1986 and 2003 respectively, the Agency has faced widespread criticism for anorganizationalculture which manyfeellacks effective central regulation,leadingto unacceptable lapses in safety procedures.

With reference tothis article[JC1],which elaborates on the NASA case-study in more depth, and the concepts you have covered in this unit, pleaseanswer the following questions.

Discussion Questions

1.How could NASA benefit from the implementation of systems thinking within theorganization?

2. Giveanexample ofthe application ofgeneral heuristicsduring the process ofchanging/defendingorganizationalculture

Please provide references.