Disruptions such as COVID-19 – and the subsequent flux they trigger in organizations and society – have become commonplace. In order to advance our understanding of (and adaptation to) future discontinuities and crises, we argue that we require a reconceptualization of how disruption occurs. To do so, we draw on Event Systems Theory (EST): in contrast to previous work viewing disruption as the outcome of a singular event, we focus on how disruption can occur from an event chain, i.e., a set of events that are temporally and causally connected. We abductively shape our conceptual arguments by drawing on narratives of past pandemics, reviewing two historical and two fictional texts that (re)create the experiences of those living through the Black Death and subsequent outbreaks of the bubonic plague. Rather than focusing on events themselves, we identify how certain characteristics among events in a chain lead to four micro-level experiences: stagnation, disorientation, polarization and repudiation. We then proceed to examine how these micro-level reactions culminate into macro-level transformations of economic, political and cultural norms. Our event-system perspective on disruption and crises thereby not only provides insights into understanding the post-pandemic world, but also generates insights into responses to future discontinuities.

中文翻译：

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事件系统视角的破坏：通过瘟疫的历史和虚构叙述来理论化大流行和其他不连续性

诸如 COVID-19 之类的破坏——以及它们在组织和社会中引发的后续变化——已经变得司空见惯。为了促进我们对未来不连续性和危机的理解（和适应），我们认为我们需要重新概念化破坏是如何发生的。为此，我们借鉴了事件系统理论 (EST)：与之前将中断视为单个事件的结果的工作相比，我们关注中断是如何从事件链发生的，即一组时间上的事件并且有因果联系。我们通过借鉴过去流行病的叙述，回顾两部历史和两部虚构的文本（重新）创造了那些经历过黑死病和随后爆发的黑死病的人的经历，从而塑造了我们的概念论点。与其关注事件本身，我们确定了连锁事件中的某些特征如何导致四种微观层面的体验：停滞、迷失方向、两极分化和否定。然后，我们继续研究这些微观层面的反应如何最终导致经济、政治和文化规范的宏观层面的转变。因此，我们对中断和危机的事件系统观点不仅为理解大流行后世界提供了见解，而且还为对未来不连续性的反应提供了见解。