A University of Waikato lecturer says society needs to take some of the blame for business failures and company disasters, such as the Pike River Mine collapse and BP oil spill.

Dr Heather Connolly, who lectures in strategic management at Waikato Management School, has written a book with her father Dr John Bircham titled Addicted to Performance: Society Demands “More-for-Less”.

The pair researched a range of accidents and disasters in New Zealand and overseas to find out how the organisations involved were being run before their crisis. They expected to find leadership responsible for organisational success or failure and for common leadership themes to emerge, but what they found was that leadership alone was not to blame for oil spills, cases of fraud, air-craft accidents or company collapse.

Dr Connolly says society has to take responsibility too because as consumers we are constantly demanding more from business but want to pay less, and that means businesses are trapped in a cycle of profit and production that has real and serious consequences.