Stakeholder Value Dynamics Analysis in Hurricane Michael: Towards Collaborative Decision Making in Building Disaster Resilient Communities

Abstract

Despite a growing acknowledgment of shared responsibilities in emergency management, one of the hidden and overlooked issues in the disaster literature is the identification and integration of multi-sector stakeholder values: the things that are of importance, merit, and utilities to the stakeholders. Stakeholders (e.g., public, private and non-profit sectors, and the communities) hold numerous values with varying degrees of importance, forming a system of value priorities. Stakeholder values and value priorities—referred to as value systems—are not static in a disaster context; they are dynamic, time-sensitive and event-driven. A more in-depth understanding of the dynamics of stakeholder value systems is crucial to facilitate the policymakers to introduce more pro-active and timely measures towards building resilient communities. To address this gap, this thesis focuses on identifying and understanding the stakeholder values across different disaster phases in the context of Hurricane Michael. Based mainly on semi-structured interviews with 51 stakeholders in Hurricane Michael affected areas in Florida, sixteen stakeholder values were identified and classified into four broad categories of Schwartz’s Theory of Basic Human Values: conservation, openness to change, self-transcendence, and self-enhancement value categories. Despite different value priorities of stakeholders, some of the most prioritized values include safety, resource efficiency, community adaptability, community cohesion, and community growth. The results also show that although there is a general consensus on the importance of the identified values, different stakeholders have different value priorities. In addition, the importance of stakeholder values dynamically changes across different disaster phases (i.e., preparedness, response, recovery, mitigation). The study’s findings inform practitioners about implementing disaster resilience strategies that account for diverse stakeholder needs and priorities, thus facilitating human-centered decision making in emergency management.