商業危機遍佈世界各角落，恩隆案、福特、等美國大公司，歐洲也不例外。 因此危機管理是非常重要的 在論文內容所討論的案子，通常是一連串連鎖錯誤所導致的，通常這些錯誤、連鎖錯誤或錯誤程序，主要都是人為因素，當主管面臨這些問題時的關鍵決策是非常重要的； 主管需要盡早將連鎖錯誤中斷。

All over the world, corporate scandals, big and small, affect our daily life. Since the beginning of the 21st century, major American corporations including WorldCom, Enron, Dynegy, Merk, Tyco, Lucent Technologies, Merrill Lynch, Global Crossing, and Health South were involved in corporate scandals. In Europe, accounting fraud and other criminal activities were uncovered at Switzerland’s Adecco, the Netherlands’ Ahold, and Parmalat, the Italian dairy concern whose owners defrauded investors of billions of dollars, including more than 1.5 billion US dollars from American investors.
Crisis management is often portrayed as reactive activity directed at problems, usually arising from human error, and already escalating. The development of a crisis is often indeterminate rather than fixed. Crisis management can mean quick actions that prevent a triggering event as it unfolds or delayed action that mops up after the triggering event has run it course.
In this paper, the proposed crisis management model is the M3 theory for managing multiple mistakes derived from Robert E. Mittelstaedt, Jr.’s book, “Will Your Next Mistake Be Fatal? Avoiding the Chain of Mistakes That Can Destroy Your Organization.” In this book, Mittelstaedt addresses errors in preparation, execution, strategy, and culture. He emphasizes that firms need to build internal control systems that will trigger clear and actionable alarms before “failure chains” accelerate beyond control. The process of Managing Multiple Mistakes (M3) can determine whether an organization ends up in a negative or positive light on the front page of a national newspaper. “The concept of Managing Multiple mistakes," Mittelstaedt writes, “is based on the observation that nearly all serious accidents, whether physical or business, are the result of more than one mistake. If we do not ‘break the chain’ of mistakes early, the damage that is done, and its cost, will go up exponentially… until the situation is irreparable.”

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Introduction
1.1 Background of Study --------------------------- 1
1.2 Purpose of Research --------------------------- 2
1.3 Methodology ----------------------------------- 3
Chapter 2. Literature Review
2.1 Crisis Derived from Execution ------------ 7
2.2 Lack of Preparation --------------------- 10
Chapter 3. Conceptual Framework
3.1 Definition ------------------------------ 17
3.2 The M3 Framework ------------------------ 18
Chapter 4. Enron
4.1 Background History ---------------------- 23
4.2 History of Deregulating Energy Market --- 25
4.3 Multiple Mistakes for Enron ------------- 26
Chapter 5. Dynegy
5.1 Background History --------------------------- 33
5.2 Project Alpha -------------------------------- 34
5.3 Multiple Mistakes for Dynegy ----------------- 36
Chapter 6. Ford Pinto
6.1 Background –Standard 301 -------------------- 41
6.2 Cost-Benefit Analysis ------------------------ 42
6.3 Multiple Mistakes for Ford Pinto-------------- 46
Chapter 7. Lessons Learned from the Study ------------- 51
Chapter 8. Conclusion --------------------------------- 53
Reference --------------------------------------------- 56











List of Figures

Figure 1: A model of Crisis Management ------------------------------------------- 12
Figure 2: Chain of Crisis Development ---------------------------------------------- 19
Figure 3: Mistakes and Cost ----------------------------------------------------------- 20
Figure 4: Chain of Crisis Development for Enron ---------------------------------- 26
Figure 5: Chain of Crisis Development for Dynegy -------------------------------- 37
Figure 6: Photo of Burned Pinto ------------------------------------------------------- 41
Figure 7: Chain of Crisis Development for Ford Pinto ----------------------------- 46










List of Tables

Table 1: Cost Benefit Analysis Table ------------------------------------------------- 45
Table 2: Table of Mistakes ------------------------------------------------------------- 52

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