Abstract
During the autumn of 2015, Europe experienced a sharp increase in refugee influx, and many refugees arrived in the European Øresund Region. Refugees travelled through Denmark and over the Øresund Bridge, arriving in the third largest city in Sweden, Malmö. Private, public and voluntary organizations in Malmö had to change the way they worked to meet the new entry demands. Flexible adaptations to changing circumstances can be described as resilient performance and are supported or hindered by societal and organizational drivers and barriers. Qualitative interview data from Swedish organizations managing the refugee reception in Malmö were analyzed through the theoretical lens of Resilience Engineering (RE). The analysis results showed that necessary adaptations were not supported by the managerial design of the responsible public organizations. The analysis also showed that preconditions created from societal steering hinders value responsiveness at the public management level, i.e., the public management level has barriers towards becoming familiar with the organization’s value structures. Familiarity with the system value and goal structure is essential for an efficient prioritizing of conflicting goals, which is why it is suggested that this aspect be explicitly included in RE principles.
Highlights
Critical Infrastructure (CI) is, according to the European Union (EU), defined as follows: “ . . . an asset, system or part thereof located in Member States which is essential for the maintenance of vital societal functions, health, safety, security, economic or social well-being of people, and the disruption or destruction of which would have a significant impact in a Member State as a result of the failure to maintain those functions” [1]
Woods [66] says that experience shows that organizations are generally slow to adapt, but the empirical material from the refugee reception case shows that private CI operators and the nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) manifested fast adaptive behavior, or according to Woods, adapted in a rate corresponding to the threat or changed circumstances [ibid.]
The aim of this study was to gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between the preconditions of Swedish CI public organizations managing the Swedish refugee reception event of 2015 and their ability to adapt
Summary
Critical Infrastructure (CI) is, according to the European Union (EU), defined as follows: “ . . . an asset, system or part thereof located in Member States which is essential for the maintenance of vital societal functions, health, safety, security, economic or social well-being of people, and the disruption or destruction of which would have a significant impact in a Member State as a result of the failure to maintain those functions” [1].For securing the functionality of CI and vital societal functions, the focus has shifted fromCI protection to CI resilience (CIR) [2], since full protection no longer is seen as possible when it comes to preparing for unexpected events [3]. Critical Infrastructure (CI) is, according to the European Union (EU), defined as follows: “ . Resilience is defined as flexible adaptation in the context of this work, and is used as the framework for an examination of the challenges experienced by organizations representing CI vital societal functions when managing the consequences of “the European refugee crisis of 2015”. The goal is to form a deeper understanding of the relationship between the preconditions for Swedish public CI organizations representing vital societal functions and their ability to adapt. Due to the wars and conflicts in the near and middle east, Europe experienced a sudden, and large, increase of asylum-seeking refugees during 2015 and 2016, an event often referred to as “the European refugee crisis of 2015”. Refugees entering the EU should seek asylum in the first EU country they reach, but because of heavy pressure on countries
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