Leveraging learning to improve disaster management outcomes

Denise D P Thompson

doi:10.1007/s13753-012-0020-4

Abstract

Disaster management agencies should be exemplars of learning given the volatility of their operating environment. However, there are cognitive, social, and organizational barriers that prevent these organizations from learning. The purpose of this article is to use the Caribbean Disaster and Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) as an example of an organization that achieves double-loop learning in spite of known barriers. This research shows significant learning variations in the CDEMA organization from the regional to the national level. The results demonstrate that the CDEMA Coordinating Unit and a few national member agencies achieve double-loop learning, while the opposite is true for many national disaster offices. Analysis of this variation is one contribution to the disaster management and organizational learning literature. The article also suggests that organizational culture is an important precursor to learning and adds a much needed case example to the management and learning literature. The study ends with a proposal for future research in the area of disaster management, culture and learning, and propositions for national disaster offices to consider in order to enhance double-loop learning.

Highlights

Disaster management agencies should be concerned about creating an organizational culture committed to learning
The primary research question guiding this research is: Is it possible to create a culture committed to continuous self-diagnosis, learning, and change in disaster management agencies? This question is broken down into four sub-questions: Does Caribbean Disaster and Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) learn? What are the sources of learning? What does it learn? How are lessons applied? The interviews revealed thick descriptions of the scope of learning, what CDEMA learns and how it applies knowledge
This article shows that CDEMA practices double-loop learning despite its known barriers

Summary

Introduction

Disaster management agencies should be concerned about creating an organizational culture committed to learning These organizations need to survive and thrive in a changing environment (Torlak 2004). Sanne (2012) stresses the crucial need for these skills in the survival of Prominent organizational theorists including Chris Argyris and Donald Schön (1978), Edgar Schein (1985), Alfred Chandler (1990), Chris Argyris (1996), and Peter Senge (1990, 2003) endorse the idea of creating a culture dedicated to learning in organizational systems They suggest that a culture committed to self-diagnosis and learning is needed in an environment characterized by rapid change and deepening complexity such as disaster management organizations. The United States Agency for International Development’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/OFDA) deployed a team to Jamaica, and simultaneously stationed a consultant in Dominica to coordinate response activities in the smaller Eastern Caribbean States (Gentles 2008)

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