Balancing Mechanistic and Organic Design Elements: The Design and Implementation of the Incident Command System (ICS)

Abstract

The Incident Command System (ICS), since its establishment in the 1980s, has been repeatedly discussed with the focuses on its pros and cons. These discussions are related to the benefits and limitations of using a mechanistic system. ICS proponents like its mechanistic design elements to command and control all responders. ICS critics, however, regard ICS mechanistic elements as hurdles to managing disaster response activities, and thus, they propose using more organic elements to design a new response system. Organizational theorists say the two types of systems are not dichotomous. It is possible the ICS has some organic design elements, and thus, cannot be treated as a pure command and control system. This research aims to explore to what degree the ICS is organic versus mechanistic. The researchers will present their analyses of two official ICS documents and three ICS online training courses, which indicates the ICS possesses both organic and mechanistic features. Results of the content analysis also demonstrate some limitations of using the ICS and show why there are so many different viewpoints toward this system.