Abstract
Although multi-sectoral coordination in disaster risk management has been progressing in South Africa for over two decades, there has been limited commitment to an integrated regime in managing marine oil spill incidents. Poor incident management persists despite the availability of data, protocols, legislation, and resources housed in different government and private sector entities. This study identified practices that enhance a coordination process for the effective management of oil spill pollution. A grounded theory approach is applied to the coordination issue, which is characterized by an interactive process of simultaneously considering theoretical grounding during our empirical research. Empirical evidence includes observations of 47 meetings and three oil spill exercises with 79 delegates from 32 different organizations, which supports the coordination process of instituting a national Incident Management System for marine oil spills in South Africa. An additional 44 individual open-ended questionnaires supplement this earlier body of evidence for data triangulation and validation. Analysis of development of the Incident Management System process revealed that, when designing a novel long-term project that is reliant on a shared vision from multiple organizations, enhanced coordination and collaboration for successful implementation is dependent on the following practices: (1) obtaining political commitment, (2) bridging knowledge gaps, and (3) sharing resources.
Highlights
Shared values, collective cognitive resources, commitment, and trust are tested to the limit during disaster response operations
Empirical evidence includes observations of 47 meetings and three oil spill exercises with 79 delegates from 32 different organizations, which supports the coordination process of instituting a national Incident Management System for marine oil spills in South Africa
Analysis of development of the Incident Management System process revealed that, when designing a novel long-term project that is reliant on a shared vision from multiple organizations, enhanced coordination and collaboration for successful implementation is dependent on the following practices: (1) obtaining political commitment, (2) bridging knowledge gaps, and (3) sharing resources
Summary
Collective cognitive resources, commitment, and trust are tested to the limit during disaster response operations. This compatibility is difficult to attain for professionals from different emergency organizations, and sometimes its absence results in poor decision making with unintended consequences. It can be argued that coordination is realized when there is a straightforward process of merging a set of disaggregated activities and actions into uniform arrangements. These may include multiple interpretations of the same system and ad hoc adaptations. This study identified, through the Operation Phakisa B1 initiative, practices that enhance a coordination process to manage effectively oil spill pollution in South Africa
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