Abstract
Since the SARS crisis in 2003, institutionalized emergency management systems have been established in each government level for improving inter-organizational collaboration in China. Major accidents require participation of public organizations affiliated with multiple government levels, and the lack of collaboration and coordination among the involved organizations within the critical time constraints during the response process is an existing problem. In this research, a case study of examining the intergovernmental and cross-sectoral collaboration for responding to a well-known oil pipeline explosion accident in China by a complex network method is conducted. The aim is to obtain managerial insights in improving the existing emergency management system in a centralized political-administrative context, such as China. A mixed method of data collection is applied to identify the participating organizations and to determine the interaction spanning organizational boundaries in both hierarchical and horizontal dimensions. An emergency response network is built and visualized for representing intergovernmental and interorganizational collaboration during the response process of the major accident by social network analysis (SNA) tools. The SNA indicators are used to measure quantitatively the network structure at the levels of the whole network, subnetwork, and node. The obstacles of achieving intergovernmental collaboration are found, and managerial suggestions for improving the existing emergency management system are provided. This research indicates that the Chinese government should pay attention to establishing and sustaining partnerships with private and nonprofit organizations and conduct a blend of hierarchical, market, and network principles in fostering collaboration for addressing major accidents. The public organizations in the local government level are shown to be more active than other participators in coordinating their response operations, and their capability should be emphasized for improvement. Additionally, the interactive relationships among specific emergency function groups and between the affected communities and organizations performing emergency command and coordination function should be strengthened.
Highlights
Major accidents always cause serious consequences to cities and overwhelm the capabilities of local governments
Despite the institutionalized emergency management systems having been established in the last decade, the lack of interorganizational collaboration and coordination presents challenges to Chinese governments for responding to emergencies involving multiple government levels
The emergency response network is built to represent the interorganizational collaboration of varying types involved in the response process
Summary
Major accidents always cause serious consequences to cities and overwhelm the capabilities of local governments. Building on and contributing to the existing research on interorganizational collaboration and network analysis in emergency management, this research investigates the diversified participating organizations and varying levels of collaborative interaction across organizational boundaries in responding to the aforementioned major accident in China from network perspectives [15]. It aims to examine how public sectors affiliated with multiple government levels, as well as private and nonprofit sectors, interact and work together toward addressing major accidents in the context of the existing emergency management institutional arrangement in China.
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