Prerequisites to Organizational Action

Abstract

Much of the public policy literature on implementation of hazard mitigation or risk reduction measures focuses on why implementation is ineffective or inadequate in one or another settings. Clearly, it is important to understand the obstacles to implementation of hazard mitigation measures in order to better understand how to increase the probability of implementation. Likewise, it is important to focus on the other side of the equation; that is, under what conditions will organizations choose to invest in hazard mitigation measures? In other words, what facilitates the implementation of, or investment in, hazard mitigation measures? Petak and Alesch’s (Organizational decision making with respect to extreme events: healthcare organizations respond to California’s SB 1953, 2004) work on the prerequisites to organizational action was inspired by March and Olsen’s (Ambiguity and choice in organizations, 1973) garbage can model of organizational decision making. That model suggests that decisions are not made, nor are actions taken, unless four independent streams come together simultaneously. The four streams consist of a problem, a solution to the problem, space on the organizational agenda, and one or more persistent advocates for matching the available solution with the existing problem. Based on their preliminary understanding of hospitals’ response to SB 1953, Petak and Alesch (Organizational decision making with respect to extreme events: healthcare organizations respond to California’s SB 1953, 2004) identified five fundamental organizational prerequisites for adoption and implementation of extreme hazard mitigation measures. This chapter discusses each in turn.