Testing the forms and consequences of collaboration risk in emergency management networks

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper elaborates the concept of collaboration risk and measures collaboration risk in an emergency management context to investigate the relations between perceived collaboration risks and network structure and to test a hypothesized non-linear form for this relation. Using an Institutional Collective Action (ICA) framework, the study discusses three dimensions of collaborative risk derived from coordination, division, and defection risk and measures these by means of a structured-survey of 69 organizations in the Seoul Metropolitan Area, South Korea. The results of a fractional polynomial regression model show that the perceived level of collaboration risk has an inverse U-curve relation with the number of collaborative ties forged by organizations. These findings imply that organizations’ perceived collaboration risk beyond a threshold point motivates the termination of former ineffective arrangements. At the same time, the collaboration with other participants increases to a specific level of collaboration risk.