Crisis learning, as a specific form of organizational learning triggered by accidents and disasters, is a critical component in preventing production safety accidents. However, influenced by instrumental values, governments display considerable variations in how they learn from crises. This variation is most evident at the district and county levels, where crisis learning is more vulnerable to both endogenous factors, such as resource capacity and consensus building, and exogenous factors, such as bureaucratic pressures and accident accountability. Given that grassroots governments bear direct managerial responsibility for production safety accidents and possess the most intimate understanding of their root causes, their crisis learning is crucial for strengthening the capacity for grassroots emergency management. Thus, exploring the underlying logic of different crisis learning behaviors by grassroots governments is of great practical significance. Existing research has discussed behavioral types, influencing factors, and learning processes. However, it does not clearly explain why grassroots governments display differing crisis learning behaviors under similar administrative settings, crisis situations, and resource limitations. This study looks at the differences in crisis learning behavior among grassroots governments after the occurrence of accidents. Based on 90 major and particularly major production safety accidents from 2013 to 2023, it uses grounded theory to build a model to explain these variations. The study finds that accident-related pressures, public opinion pressures, and bureaucratic pressures stimulate demands for grassroots government crisis learning. Different levels of these factors lead to different learning behaviors. Second, these pressures trigger the need for crisis learning, while the choice between single-loop and double-loop learning depends on the learning window. If the window is closed, learning remains at the single-loop level, but if the window is open, grassroots governments may begin double-loop learning, but the window only opens when both the risk concentration and consensus are high. Third, the focus and accountability of higher-level governments act in concert to shape the features of crisis learning. In “high focus-high accountability” and “high focus-low accountability” situations, the catalytic level is high and learning is proactive. In “low focus-high accountability” situations, the catalytic level is high but learning involves compliance. In “low focus-low accountability” situations, the catalytic level is low and learning is merely crisis learning, but support and guidance from higher-level governments can enhance the willingness to learn. Fourth, by combining the state of learning with the catalytic level, four types of crisis learning can be identified: double-loop exploration, double-loop compliance, single-loop execution, and single-loop demonstration. This study reveals the generative logic underlying variations in crisis learning behavior among grassroots governments and reveals the dynamic shift from single-loop to double-loop learning during periods of crisis. Furthermore, this research makes several recommendations for achieving double-loop learning at the grassroots level: strengthening risk perceptions by grassroots governments and using vertical intervention by higher-level governments in an appropriate way.
ZHANG et al. (Mon,) studied this question.