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How and why do international organizations develop institutional memory from strategic errors ? As the author shows, formal learning processes, ironically, can deter elite officials from sharing their knowledge within the organizations at which they work. Elites have few professional incentives to report failures. Consequently, most memory-building occurs behind the scenes via informal processes, including transnational interpersonal networks. The author rests her argument through extensive, original field research inside one of the world's largest crisis management organizations - the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). She conducted interviews and a survey experiment with 120 NATO elites, including almost all NATO ambassadors and military representatives, all assistant secretary generals, and other civilian and military leaders engaged in crisis management decision-making and planning. The author's findings provide insights into NATO's institutional memory of three cases of crisis management in Afghanistan, Libya, and Ukraine. She argues that formal learning processes alone are insufficient for organizational learning, and she offers recommendations for how international organizations can preserve memory and learn from it, particularly in times of crisis.

NATO--DECISION MAKING --- KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT