Managing spontaneous volunteers during emergency response: The role of trust

Abstract

Spontaneous volunteers often serve as a critical resource during disaster and emergency response, but they may also cause confusion, accidents and further escalation of an emergency situation. In order to contribute towards a deeper understanding of managerial decision-making and conditions limiting and enabling efficient and effective emergency response, this article examines the role of trust in managing spontaneous volunteers during emergency response. Building on theories of trust, trust-based management and cross-sector collaboration, it argues that incident commanders engage in trust evaluations when determining whether and how to involve citizens as co-responders. Reporting on an empirical study of local emergency management in Norway and Denmark, it shows how trust plays a role in five conceptually distinct strategies for managing unaffiliated citizens: dismissing, directing, cooperating, coordinating, and collaborating. The study findings suggest that intermediary organizations such as the Red Cross provide critical infrastructures of trust that enable incident commanders to progress from costly and low-value forms of control-based management to more efficient and effective forms of trust-based management.