Collaborative Crisis Management Research Articles

Unified Effort: Developing a Mixed Reality Serious Game for Collaborative Crisis Management Training

Abstract: Crises and disasters include both predictable and unpredictable events. In a turbulent world that has recently experienced a pandemic and wars, and is increasingly affected by climate change, there is a growing need to develop effective public crisis management capabilities. Emergency preparedness is a critical foundation for crisis management. Training and exercises are essential components of preparedness and are becoming increasingly relevant for a wide range of organisations in society. To achieve a unified response to threatening events, a wide range of actors - with different backgrounds, objectives, competencies and organisational frameworks - must overcome the challenges of working together. To address this complex situation, forums for knowledge sharing and learning are required. Serious games in mixed reality can be used as a platform for collaborative training and serve as such a forum. Mixed reality systems connect virtual and physical reality, providing users with a sense of immersion, engagement and interaction in both environments. The aim of this paper is to design a short, serious game for collaboration training with two command levels in a mixed reality. Theories of crisis management, along with related research on serious games design, create the framework for the game. The game content was further developed in a co-design process with selected professionals. This paper describes the development of the “Unified Effort” game. The serious game is designed for basic training of municipalities and county offices in soft skills such as communication, situational awareness and group decision making. The game is not intended to replace hard skills such as procedural training and field drills, but can be used as a supplement to this type of training.

Collaborative Crisis Management and Nonprofit Governance

Collaborative Crisis Management and Nonprofit Governance

The Concentration of Emergency Competencies During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Hungary: A Lack of Effective Control

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed a major challenge not only to the effectiveness of health crisis management by national governments but also to the democratic functioning of states. This article describes how the institutional guarantees of the democratic exercise of power in Hungary malfunctioned. The operation of Parliament and local self-governments as representative bodies, the Constitutional Court, the Ombudsperson, and the courts as control- and judicial-type institutions will be analysed vis-à-vis the Hungarian Government's action. The study thus aims to reveal how the systematic challenges and diminishing role of local self-governments in collaborative crisis management are not an outstanding and isolated problem, but part of the systematic autocratic regime change in Hungary accelerated by the COVID-19-related special legal order.

A maturity model to guide inter-organisational crisis management and response exercises

This paper proposes a six-step maturity ladder for inter-organizational collaborative capability in crisis management and response operations. The paper argues that collaborative crisis management and response can be seen as a case of complex adaptive systems, where awareness of the organizational context of crisis response, technical interoperability, and individual relations are drivers that enable rapid and successful mobilization of crisis response. The maturity ladder provides a link between the capabilities necessary for collaboration possessed by individual crisis response entities and the overall system maturity in terms of collaborative crisis management capability. It can inter alia be used as a basis for a discussion when inter-organizational exercises are appropriate and when focus must remain on the development of the capabilities of individual crisis response entities.

‘Simply by collaborating’? The impact of public and nongovernmental sectors collaboration experience on its institutionalization in the Lithuanian crisis management system

AbstractDespite some evidence that the experience of collaboration contributes to its institutionalization in the crisis management system, the mechanisms behind this process remain unclear. Building on existing research, we distinguish six building blocks (i.e., pressure to collaborate, clarity of roles, mutual trust, leadership, positive feedback and learning) that influence the institutionalization of collaborative crisis management. By applying theory‐building process tracing to the Lithuanian COVID‐19 and irregular migration crises management, we analyse the interplay on these factors to derive the following propositions: (1) when crisis management involves partners with limited collaborative experience, both transformational and boundary spanning leadership are critical at different stages to institutionalize collaboration; (2) the clarification of roles, provision of positive feedback and the subsequent growth of trust experienced by partners engaged in collaborative activities contribute to the informal institutionalization of collaborative crisis management; (3) positive feedback on previous collaborative experience facilitates learning within the crisis management system and, when supported by the efforts of transformational leaders, leads to the formal institutionalization of collaborative crisis management. These propositions demonstrate how collaborative approaches can be fostered to deal with future crises as well as raise the question on the balance between formal and informal institutionalization of these practices.

Organisation of cross-sector collaboration and its influence on crisis management effectiveness among pharmaceutical supply chain stakeholders during the COVID-19 pandemic

ObjectivesTo investigate the organisation of cross-sector collaboration and how it influenced crisis management effectiveness among pharmaceutical supply chain stakeholders in Finland during the COVID-19 pandemic. Study designQualitative semi-structured interview study. MethodsPurposeful selection was used to obtain the study sample consisting of leaders and specialists from the pharmaceutical industry and wholesalers (n = 9), community pharmacy owners (n = 9), hospital pharmacy heads (n = 6), government agency directors and officials (n = 5) and advocacy organisation representatives (n = 2). Inductive content analysis was performed to examine the data from the semi-structured individual (n = 29) and paired (n = 2) interviews in March–May 2021. ResultsA new conceptual model was developed to describe the organisation of collaborative crisis management. Without a predefined crisis management organisation, cross-sector collaboration was organised based on previous collaboration structures, channels and relationships and through the establishment of issue-specific groups by government agencies as per legal mandates. Crisis dynamics and related issues guided the group formation and meeting frequency. Advocacy organisations and government agencies acted in bridging role between stakeholders. Shared knowledge among pharmaceutical supply chain stakeholders enabled anticipation and preparedness during crisis; shared resources fostered maintenance of core functions; and shared problem-solving facilitated cross-sectoral solutions. ConclusionThis was the first study exploring cross-sector collaboration among pharmaceutical supply chain stakeholders during a crisis. Sharing knowledge, resources and problem-solving increased the crisis management effectiveness. The study presented a new illustration of organising for collaborative crisis management and added knowledge about private-third sector collaboration and issue-specific groups to the cross-sector collaboration and crisis management literature.

Exploring collaborative crisis management: A model of essential capabilities

Crises at the societal level demand responses outside the normal and routine-based. Insufficient ability to handle a crisis risks to negatively affect several societal values, for example human life and health, the functionality of society or democracy. Due to the extent and complexity of these types of crises, they demand adapted collaborative responses based on several actors, which may not commonly act together. Although there is plenty of experience in crisis management, it is still not clear what capabilities enable different actors to jointly act in a coordinated manner when dealing with crises. The objective of this study was to develop a model of capabilities that constitute collaborative crisis management. The study was carried out in three activities: defining capabilities, validating the capabilities, and detailing the descriptions of the capabilities. The result was 14 capabilities categorized as core, supportive, and enabling. This capability model reflects vital capabilities of actual collaborative crisis management. It is applicable to the support of development and maintenance of the collaborative crisis management capability.

Collaborative Crisis Management in controlling the second wave of Covid-19: Evidence from Indonesia

Covid-19 is a pandemic disease that has surpassed the global response capacity. At the beginning of the outbreak, numerous countries were unprepared to deal with the pandemic caused by the Covid-19 which has claimed numerous lives. As one of the world's most populous countries, Indonesia has been particularly hardly suffered by the Covid-19 pandemic. The worst-case scenario occured when Indonesia was struck by the Delta Variant's, a second Covid-19 wave. On the other hand, Indonesia has made significant progress in reducing the number of cases. Indonesia's government has invited all stakeholders from diverse backgrounds to work together to address the Covid-19 crisis. Indonesia has been demonstrating its rapid capability in overcoming the second wave. This paper examines how Collaborative Crisis Management has been used in Indonesia to control the pandemic.

Militarisation, masculinisation and organisational exclusion in the crisis preparedness sector

This study aims to deepen the understanding of processes that affect collaboration between professions and organisations in the crisis preparedness domain from a gender perspective. A total of twenty-three Swedish duty officers participated in the study. The analysis of the interviews show that collaboration can be understood as (a) the militarisation of civil crisis management actors, which means that many of the work processes and cultures that originate in military organisations can now be found in the security and crisis management sector; (b) the masculinisation, which means that when male dominance appears to prevail, active strategies are used against women, civilian personnel and also inexperienced colleagues and (c) organisational exclusion which emerges particularly in situations where collaboration between female-dominated and male-dominated organisations are required. The findings are important for crisis preparedness research and practice and should work in favour of evening out asymmetries in collaborative crisis management.

Implementation through collaborative crisis management and contingency planning: the case of dam failure in Sweden

This article builds on the field of collaborative crisis management, a mix of collaborative public management (CPM) and crisis management (CM). A field that often focuses on large-scale threats, sometimes labelled societal challenges, whose impacts are broad and cross-cutting and impacts many actors in society and drives demand for collaboration. In this study, we are interested in events that have broad and disastrous impacts on society, high degrees of uncertainty and potentially cascading effects and we study this through an in-depth case study of collaborative crisis management tasked with contingency planning for dam failure risk in a large river basin in central Sweden. We find that there was a lack in reach of the collaboration potentially limiting capacity and capacity building in ways that can limit preparedness and increase vulnerability in a crisis situation. We also found that contingency planning was treated as a demarcated project with a beginning and an end and not entirely as a continuous process. Both these observations go against the basic principles of contingency planning. Hence, there is a need to acknowledge and abridge varying levels of organisational capacity and build/maintain awareness within and between the organisations and actors involved. This study shows that the practice of cross-sector collaboration and contingency planning is both complex and complicated. The article has the potential to aid policy-makers in the field to pinpoint central aspects of cross-sector collaboration and contingency planning that needs to be addressed in order to mitigate limits to preparedness and increased vulnerability in a crisis situation. A deeper knowledge on these challenges and problems can also support progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goal 9 (especially in relation to the aspect of building resilient infrastructure) through its empirical focus on infrastructure failure in terms of dam failure.

Professionalization of crisis management: A case study of local‐level crisis communicators in Sweden

AbstractThis study applies an institutional profession perspective on a significant crisis management actor in an aim to deepen the understanding of collaborative crisis management work and practices. The study argues that a professions perspective holds a key to approaching interagency gaps in status and influence, which tend to affect collaborative crisis management negatively. Empirically the study is based on 19 interviews with local crisis communicators in Sweden. Findings indicate that, in terms of internal collaboration, limited knowledge among organizational members about the role and skills of crisis communicators require communicators to spend time and resources on ‘promoting’ their competence within the organization. Regarding inter‐organizational collaboration, the study shows that the closer a communication officer works to the spatial place of the crisis and to the rescue service, the higher the status of the communication officer. Interestingly enough, relations seem to go both ways as emergency service personnel can also be empowered by becoming more skillful communicators.

Collaborative crisis management: a plausibility probe of core assumptions

ABSTRACT In this article, we utilize the Collaborative Governance Databank to empirically explore core theoretical assumptions about collaborative governance in the context of crisis management. By selecting a subset of cases involving episodes or situations characterized by the combination of urgency, threat, and uncertainty, we conduct a plausibility probe to garner insights into a number of central assumptions and dynamics fundamental to understanding collaborative crisis management. Although there is broad agreement among academics and practitioners that collaboration is essential for managing complex risks and events that no single actor can handle alone, in the literature, there are several unresolved claims and uncertainties regarding many critical aspects of collaborative crisis management. Assumptions investigated in the article relate to starting-points and triggers for collaboration, level of collaboration, goal-formulation, adaptation, involvement and role of non-state actors, and the prevalence and impact of political infighting. The results confirm that crises represent rapidly moving and dynamic events that raise the need for adaptation, adjustment, and innovation by diverse sets of participants. We also find examples of successful behaviours where actors managed, despite challenging conditions, to effectively contain conflict, formulate and achieve shared goals, adapt to rapidly changing situations and emergent structures, and innovate in response to unforeseen problems.

Peak performance: collaborative crisis management before and during international summits

This comparative case study probes into conditions for collaborative governance in the security organisation of international summits. The security of summits can be seen as a latent crisis, for which collaboration amongst a variety of stakeholders is necessary. Managing collaboration in preparation for latent crises is the focus of this paper. The case studies (the Nuclear Security Summit in The Hague in 2014 and the G20 in Toronto in 2010) reveal the importance of: inclusion of a diversity of relevant actors; symmetry of power and resources among actors; the outreach and legitimisation by network leaders; positive steps to repair antagonism between network partners and opposition against the summit; and the commitment of stakeholders to make the collaboration work. These findings highlight the importance of collaborative crisis management in preparing for and managing high profile security events.

Peak performance: collaborative crisis management before and during international summits

Peak performance: collaborative crisis management before and during international summits

Meta‐Governance and Collaborative Crisis Management—Competing Rationalities in the Management of the Swedish Security Communications System

It is well recognized that contemporary crisis call for collaborative efforts across both organizational and jurisdictional boundaries. One of the key challenges for governments and public authorities responsible for organizing crisis management is to find adequate ways in which they can support decentralized and collaborative responses. This effort can be analyzed through the meta‐governance approach that suggests that different instruments can be used to support decentralized collaborative efforts. This article analyzes the management of crisis communication in Sweden and the implementation of a new national Security Communications System (SCS) as a specific case of meta‐governance. The main finding suggests that meta‐governance may be impaired by combining different types of governance (sovereignty, markets, or network management) due to competing rationality invested in each governance style. The deadlock was, however, resolved by direct involvement and increased deliberation between the meta‐governors and the end users as it generated a shared understanding of crisis management and the utility of a single SCS. Besides identifying the importance of direct involvement in terms of network management the article also suggests that meta‐governors need to develop a deeper and more sensitive understanding of the self‐organizing nature of networks in order to be able to support collaborative crisis management.

Collaborative Crisis Management and Leadership in the Public Sector

ABSTRACTThe goal of this article is to discover how leadership competencies affect the perceived effectiveness of crisis management. The study, based on a self-reported survey of executive public leaders in Turkey, found that the core leadership competencies have a positive relationship with the effectiveness of crisis management. Among task–oriented, people–oriented, and organization-oriented categories of leadership behaviors, task-oriented leadership behaviors were found with the highest level of impact on the effectiveness of crisis management. The study demonstrated the importance of the core leadership competencies in the effectiveness of crisis leadership. The hypothesis testing with the covariance structure model supported the positive impact of the core leadership competencies on the effectiveness of crisis management. This study contributes to the literature on leadership during crisis situations, and also provides proposals for public managers and practitioners to increase their effectiveness in leading their organizations during crises.

SECTOR: Secure Common Information Space for the Interoperability of First Responders

The ever-growing human, economic and environmental losses due to natural and/or man-made disasters demand a systematic, holistic, inter-governmental and multi-disciplinary approach to the management of large-scale crisis. However, crisis management is usually coordinated by local authorities, supported by a variety of different national and international crisis management organizations, all acting relatively autonomously. Coordination actions usually adopt non-interoperable information management tools, due to the heterogeneity of the involved organizations, limiting or even hindering the coordination efforts. This paper introduces the efforts conducted in the context of the EU-funded project called SECTOR, which aims at establishing the foundations of future Collaborative Crisis Management (CCM) Information Spaces by expanding the European scientific knowledge base on (cross-border) multi-agency processes and their complications when setting-up and designing the enabling information systems.

An extended attribute based access control model with trust and privacy: Application to a collaborative crisis management system

Many efforts in the area of computer security have been drawn to attribute-based access control (ABAC). Compared to other adopted models, ABAC provides more granularity, scalability, and flexibility. This makes it a valuable access control system candidate for securing platforms and environments used for coordination and cooperation among organizations and communities, especially over open networks such as the Internet. On the other hand, the basic ABAC model lacks provisions for context, trust and privacy issues, all of which are becoming increasingly critical, particularly in high performance distributed collaboration environments. This paper presents an extended access control model based on attributes associated with objects and subjects. It incorporates trust and privacy issues in order to make access control decisions sensitive to the cross-organizational collaboration context. Several aspects of the proposed model are implemented and illustrated by a case study that shows realistic ABAC policies in the domain of distributed multiple organizations crisis management systems. Furthermore, the paper shows a collaborative graphical tool that enables the actors in the emergency management system to make better decisions. The prototype shows how it guarantees the privacy of object’s attributes, taking into account the trust of the subjects. This tool incorporates a decision engine that relies on attribute based policies and dynamic trust and privacy evaluation. The resulting platform demonstrates the integration of the ABAC model, the evolving context, and the attributes of actors and resources.