Crisis Decision Research Articles

Credibility, Organizational Politics, and Crisis Decision Making

Credibility, Organizational Politics, and Crisis Decision Making

Singapore's COVID-19 crisis decision-making through centralization, legitimacy, and agility: an empirical analysis

Decision-making during health crises differs from routine decision-making and is constrained by ambiguity about evolving epidemiological situations, urgency of response, lack of evidence, and fear. Recent analyses of governance and decision-making during COVID-19, focusing on leadership qualities, involvement of specific stakeholders, and effective resource management, do not adequately address a persisting gap in understanding the determinants of decision-making during health crises at the national level. We undertook a study to understand the processes and characteristics of decision-making during the COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore. We used a case study approach and collected empirical evidence about public health decision-making, using a combination of key informant interviews and focus group discussions with stakeholders from government, academia and civil society organizations. We argue that administrative centralization and political legitimacy played important roles in agile governance and decision-making during the pandemic in Singapore. We demonstrate the role of the Singapore government's centralization in creating a unified and coherent governance model for emergency response and the People's Action Party's (PAP) legitimacy in facilitating people's trust in the government. Health system resilience and financial reserves further facilitated an agile response, yet community participation and prioritization of vulnerable migrant populations were insufficient in the governance processes. Our analysis contributes to the theory and practice of crisis decision-making by highlighting the role of political and administrative determinants in agile crisis decision-making. This study is funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention through a Cooperative Research Agreement (NU2HGH2020000037).

Healthcare Decision-Making in a Crisis: A Qualitative Systemic Review Protocol.

Background. Throughout history, communities have faced outbreaks of infectious diseases and other natural and man-made disasters that pose significant threats to lives, public health, and business continuity. Many of these disasters are crises that require critical decisions to be made in a short, crucial time with limited information and unforeseen circumstances amidst panic, fear, and shock. The COVID-19 pandemic is a recent example, with public leaders responding to and formulating strategies to attenuate the relentless waves of transmission and surges in resource demands. The pandemic underscored the importance of understanding how healthcare leaders make decisions in-crisis and what factors healthcare leaders prioritize in their decision-making process. Methods/Design. PubMed(NLM), Embase(Ovid), Scopus(Elsevier), Business Source(EBSCOhost), and ProQuest will be searched for primary qualitative studies published in English to explore the multi-faceted decision-making processes of healthcare leaders during a public health crisis. A meta-ethnographic approach will synthesize insights into healthcare leaders' experiences and perspectives and generate a conceptual theory of decision-making in crisis. Discussion. Understanding how healthcare leaders make critical decisions during public health crises takes advantage of the lessons learned to inform how future health crises are managed. (This systematic review is registered in PROSPERO: CRD42023475382).

An Empirical Analysis of Influencing Factors of Government Decision-Making on Public Crisis

As the times and the world are changing in an unprecedented way, public security issues have become increasingly linked, transnational, and diverse, causing huge impacts on the global economy and society, as well as posing great challenges to the government in dealing with public crisis decision-making. This study aims to determine the factors affecting the government's crisis decision-making and analyze the interrelationship among the factors affecting the government's crisis decision-making and the performance of its crisis decision-making. The questionnaire was developed and used to collect data from 400 samples of various groups, including government department personnel, scientific research institute practitioners, university lecturers, the public, and university students, both online and face-to-face. The structural equation model (SEM) is used to evaluate the structural relationships of the relevant variables, including the crisis decision-making body, crisis decision-making procedure, crisis decision-making performance, the decision environment, and value identification. It is found that the diversified decision-making subject and decision-making environment have a positive and significant impact on the public crisis decision-making process, value identification, and decision-making performance, respectively. This study has contributed to the following issues. Firstly, it developed new measurement tools and indicators for better evaluating the quality and effect of public crisis decision-making and exploring the influence of different factors on the crisis decision-making of the government. Secondly, it employed cross-industry and cross-cultural comparative research to find commonalities and differences and provide targeted recommendations. Doi: 10.28991/ESJ-2024-08-02-03 Full Text: PDF

The role of artificial intelligence in nuclear crisis decision making: a complement, not a substitute

ABSTRACT This article explores the nuanced interplay between artificial intelligence (AI) and human decision making in the high-stakes arena of nuclear crisis management. We argue that AI, despite its lack of emotional intelligence and experiential learning, presents unique opportunities to enhance decision-makers’ ability to navigate the complexities of nuclear crises. By juxtaposing AI's data-driven insights with human intelligence's depth in emotional and creative processes, we illustrate the complementary roles each can play in fostering empathy, understanding, and, ultimately, security dilemma sensibility (SDS). Through theoretical exploration and thought experiments on historical crises such as the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Able Archer incident, we demonstrate AI's potential in mitigating misperceptions and facilitating informed, empathetic responses that acknowledge the fears and intentions of adversaries. However, we also highlight the inherent limitations and ethical considerations of over-relying on AI, stressing the irreplaceable value of human judgment and the need for a balanced approach that leverages the strengths of both AI and human intelligence. Our conclusion underscores the importance of integrating AI as a tool within a broader strategy of crisis management that prioritises trust-building and direct communication among decision-makers to navigate the delicate dynamics of international security and diplomacy effectively.

IMPROVING THE EVALUATION AND PREDICTION OF PREVENTION AND TREATMENT EFFICIENCY DURING PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCIES BY USING THE SBM-BPNN ALGORITHM

Crisis response is the key to reducing the impact and damage of public health emergencies. Previous studies only focused on specific measures for emergency response, but the effectiveness of these measures has seldom been discussed. How about the effective of the crisis response on public health emergencies? What will happen to the effectiveness of crisis response after the transformation of public health emergency measures? To address these questions, a novel research framework was constructed by combining slacks-based measure (SBM) and back propagation neural network (BPNN) algorithms. At Stage I, an efficiency evaluation was conducted on SBM with undesirable outputs to evaluate the prevention and treatment efficiency during public health emergencies, and stochastic frontier analysis was performed to mitigate the influence of environmental factors and statistical noise. At Stage II, the adjusted efficiency was predicted with the BPNN model. The decision-making units were effectively improved by incorporating slack variables, thus enabling the prediction and optimization of optimal cases given the epidemic resources. An empirical analysis of the response of 43 G20 member countries to the COVID-19 pandemic showed that the novel framework could evaluate prevention and treatment efficiency across regions and predict the efficiency and optimal case outputs following shifts in epidemic preventive measures. After evaluation, the mean squared error of the BPNN efficiency prediction model was only 0.0014, whereas that of the BPNN optimal output prediction model was 0.126. Therefore, this novel framework is suitable for evaluating and predicting the effectiveness of crisis response on public health emergencies, which provides necessary assistance for crisis decision-making by the government and emergency management organizations., Keywords: Public health emergencies, COVID-19 pandemic, Crisis response efficiency, Evaluation, Prediction.

Experts as crisis managers: The case of the Swedish response to the Covid‐19 pandemic

AbstractThe academic discussion on the role of experts in crisis decision making subject is scattered and diverged. The debate has foremost been connected to the discussion of centralized versus decentralized responses. Inspired by the notion of contingency and Karl Weick, this article explores the role of the Swedish Public Health Agency in coping with the Covid‐19 pandemic. One of the key findings from the study is that even if experts might have a better technical understanding, at the same time, they risk getting stuck in identity concerns and previous experiences which result in rigid responses. The study also underlines that it is risky for decision‐makers to rely upon one single body of expertise at times when uncertainty is high and there is a lack of solid evidence and knowledge, given the likelihood of fixation and rigidity. Rather, policy makers should encourage a deliberative debate, involving a diversity of experts and expertise.

LITERATUR REVIEW : KEPEMIMPINAN DI MASA KRISIS DAN KETAHANAN UMKM

In this crisis, the entire world economy can be seen growing slower and inflation is faster. MSMEs play an important role in overcoming obstacles to poverty, inequality and job creation. However, the development of SMEs still encounters many obstacles such as inadequate human resources, few raw material resources, activities that are low on environmental resilience, and inadequate coordination in governance resilience. Using the systematic literature review research method, which collects several related journals from Google Sholar, Emerald, Science Direct and Elsevier. As a result, the Crisis had an overall strong effect on the resilience of telecommunications companies. Given this, this study suggests that; Businesses should have a center for training corporate leaders and managers and equip them with the necessary capacities to overcome crises. When emergencies and public crises occur, crisis decision making is critical. Crisis decision-making must follow the principles of social (organizational) reform, the principle of selective radicalism and the principle of taking risks and avoiding possibilities by considering accurate information

Untangling the Mystery of Intuitive-Analytic Interactions in Crisis Response Operations: A Dual-Process Perspective

Whilst it is often claimed that experienced crisis responders are likely to adopt the intuitive and analytical thinking styles when solving complex problems in time-pressured crisis situations, scholarly efforts to explicate the nature of interactions between the intuitive and analytical modes remain sparse. To bridge this gap, we review four duality-based cognitive models and draw evidence from the Hudson River case study to better understand the patterns of the interplay between the intuitive and analytical information processing modes in time-pressured crisis situations. We found support for the dual-process theory, and note that although intuition is frequently deployed as the default cognitive mode in crisis situations, experienced crisis responders can exploit some features of the analytical mode to validate their intuitive tendencies when required. Based on evidence from the Hudson River case study, a range of intuitive-analytic tension points that largely explain the nature of interactions within the duality framework are identified. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of the dual-process information modes for crisis decision-making.

Expert perspectives on the changing dynamics of policy advisory systems: the COVID-19 crisis and policy learning in Belgium and Australia

Expert advice played a pivotal role in shaping the COVID-19 policy responses of different countries. Such measures had wide ranging impacts beyond health, including education, economy, law, and other societal aspects. Thus, analysis of how expertise was utilised and adjusted to adapt to changes during the crisis can draw valuable insights into how to better prepare policy advisory systems to respond to future crises. Here we examine the dynamics of COVID-19 policy advisory systems in Belgium and Australia through interviews with 34 experts directly involved during the first two years of the crisis. We examine the temporal changes in how expert advice was sought, provided, and utilised for crisis decision-making, and the various expert groupings and their relationships over time. In both countries, there was policy learning and adjustment, signalled primarily by an expansion in the breadth of perceived relevant expertise as the scope was re-framed from a ‘health’ crisis to an all-encompassing socio-economic crisis. In Australia, policy responses were shaped by a relatively cohesive inter-governmental group of senior health bureaucrats who became gatekeepers of the evidence presented to state and federal government leaders in the National Cabinet. In Belgium, the more fragmented and changing array of advisory groups reflected tensions within crisis management arrangements, resulting in divergent expert opinions both within the formal advisory groups and in the public realm throughout the crisis. Our findings build on the policy advisory systems and policy learning literature and suggest that more adaptive frameworks and principles be developed for specific contexts.

TOWARD DATA LAKES FOR CRISIS MANAGEMENT

Abstract. The content of the data lake comes (is filled) from different sources, and different users (experts in various fields) of the same data can download and analyse the same data for their (different) needs and analysis. Big Data about the human environment and the effect of natural and human-caused disasters (in this case: heat islands, earthquakes and lava flows, and landmine contamination) on that environment have been available to many people for years and are the subject of discussions, but there are still numerous research challenges in the form of structuring and storing data and analysis results. This implies certain requirements for efficient integration, access and querying of the various data in the data repository for the described purpose. Data lakes and data warehouses are offered as solutions to this problem. Well-designed data lakes can be a basic building block for different solutions in the analysis of the effects of disasters on the environment, and high-quality data warehouses for modelling future potential disasters in the same area. This paper presents certain personal observations and certain proposals for the creation of efficient data lakes and data warehouses (based on many years of work on problems in areas: humanitarian demining, heat islands and volcanic activity) for the needs of decision-making in crisis based on examples from practice. The goal is to influence the development of a unique framework for the creation and maintenance of a data lake, in terms of its better utilization so that it does not become a data swamp.

“They didn’t ask us!” School Counselor Perception of Involvement in Superintendent Decision Making During Crisis Schooling

Mental health and social-emotional development are fundamental to positive developmental outcomes. Students faced with the collective trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting rapid closure of school buildings in the spring of 2020 encountered unprecedented challenges to their physical and mental health. Structural barriers, coupled with a disproportionate shortfall of mental health professionals in rural settings, meant that rural students were at heightened risk of suffering negative psychological consequences. School districts emerged as a high-leverage source of institutional support, providing a variety of services to sustain the well-being of students and families. Superintendents were charged with reimagining the role of their schools in providing for these needs. This study used crisis decision theory as a framework to understand superintendent decision-making around mental health and social-emotional learning (SEL). Given their high degree of expertise around students’ mental health and social-emotional needs, school counselors might have been expected to serve as expert resources for superintendents during crisis decision-making around psychological needs. This statewide quantitative study sought to understand the role Maine school counselors played in the district-level response to crisis schooling as it pertained to students’ mental health and social-emotional development across geospatial contexts. Our data shows that school counselors’ perception of their involvement in superintendent decision-making was lowest where it was needed most: in rural school districts. This points toward inequitable opportunities for rural students to obtain the mental health and SEL support they needed during crisis schooling, threatening their future well-being and positive psychological development.

“We have to save him”: a qualitative study on care transition decisions in Ontario’s long-term care settings during the COVID-19 pandemic

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to a global crisis in long-term care (LTC) with devastating consequences for residents, families and health professionals. In Ontario, Canada the severity of this crisis has prompted some care partners to move residents home with them for the duration or a portion of the pandemic. This type of care transition, from LTC to home care, was highly unusual pre-pandemic and arguably suboptimal for adults with complex needs. This paper presents the findings of a qualitative study to better understand how residents, care partners, and health professionals made care transition decisions in Ontario’s LTC settings during the pandemic.MethodsSemi-structured interviews were conducted with 32 residents, care partners and health professionals who considered, supported or pursued a care transition in a LTC setting in Ontario during the pandemic. Crisis Decision Theory was used to structure the analysis.ResultsThe results highlighted significant individual and group differences in how participants assessed the severity of the crisis and evaluated response options. Key factors that had an impact on decision trajectories included the individuals’ emotional responses to the pandemic, personal identities and available resources.ConclusionsThe findings from this study offer novel important insights regarding how individuals and groups perceive and respond to crisis events.

Jules Develle and the Paknam Incident of 1893

This contribution analyses the role of the French Foreign Minister Jules Develle with regard to the Franco-Siamese Crisis of 1893. The main body of the text addresses the extent to which Jules Develle directed French foreign policy during the Siamese Crisis of 1893. The paper assumes that although Develle officially held the power, his decisionmaking in the Siamese crisis was substantially influenced by other actors. The purpose of this paper is to identify who these actors were and the extent to which they were able to persuade the Foreign Minister to adopt their views or aims with respect to the Siam question.

Use of high flow nasal cannula oxygen therapy for patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 outside intensive care setting.

In early 2022, there was a sudden surge of patients infected by the Omicron variant of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) in Hong Kong (HK), resulting in 9,163 deaths as of 29 May 2022. Many of the local population had not been vaccinated before this wave. The number of patients who developed coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) related respiratory failure outnumbered the capacity of intensive care unit (ICU) beds. Some of these patients had to be supported with high flow nasal cannula (HFNC) therapy outside ICU setting. HK was in crisis situation. The primary objective of this study is to assess the 28-day mortality of this group of patients. The secondary objective is to explore any predictors of non-survivors to help clinical decision-making in future crisis. This is a retrospective observational study of patients suffering from COVID-19 related respiratory failure who received HFNC therapy in general medical wards of two hospitals during the period of 17 Mar to 30 Apr 2022. Survival and risk factors were reviewed. Forty-nine patients were recruited. Twenty-six patients (53%) survived at 28-day after initiation of HFNC support. Three clinical parameters were found to be significantly associated with mortality at 28-day: (I) SpO2/FiO2 (SF) ratio <160 at 48 hours; (II) SF ratio <191 at 72 hours; (III) serial SF ratio at 48 or 72 hours showing no improvement over that at the time of initiation of HFNC therapy. Use of HFNC outside ICU setting showed benefit to patients suffering from COVID-19 related acute hypoxemic respiratory failure (AHRF). Serial SF ratio monitoring at 48 and 72 hours after therapy initiation might serve as predictors of outcome and thus guide clinical decision-making for medical resource allocation in outbreak situation.

What Happens to the Entrepreneurial Intentions of Gen Z in a Crony Capitalist Economy Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic?

Despite years of research, scholars still have a limited understanding of the factors that lead individuals to start their own businesses. Drawing upon the crisis decision theory (CDT), the theory of planned behavior (TPB), the entrepreneurial event model (EEM), and previous research on entrepreneurial intentions (EIs), this study investigates the impact of a set of predictors (i.e., perceived crisis severity, entrepreneurial disposition, support from family/friends, university affiliation, gender, year of study, work experience, presence of a role model, and completion of an entrepreneurship class) on the outcome variable (i.e., EIs) of Generation Z in a highly tourism-dependent transitional economy. Pearson’s correlation and multiple regression were employed to analyze the data collected in May/June 2020 via a self-administered questionnaire from 300 tourism and hospitality students enrolled at five public universities in Croatia. The results indicate that entrepreneurial disposition, work experience, and gender are directly related to EI. The perceived crisis severity does not affect EI. These findings contribute to filling gaps in the existing research on entrepreneurship during major crises, on EIs of Gen Z, on the role of perceived crisis severity in EIs, and on the state of EIs in mono-industrial (i.e., dominated by one industry) crony capitalist ex-communist economies.

Supporting Humanitarian Crisis Decision Making with Reliable Intelligence Derived from Social Media Using AI

Abstract Recent advances in the field of artificial intelligence bring promising new capabilities that can substantially improve our ability to manage complex and evolving situations in the face of uncertainty. Humanitarian crises exemplify such situations, and the pervasiveness of social media renders it one of the most abundant sources of real-time information available. However, it is quite a difficult task to condense a body of social media posts into useful information quickly. In this paper we consider the challenge of using social media reports to provide a reliable, real-time situational awareness in the management of humanitarian crises. Effectively addressing this challenge requires extracting only the relevant information out of text and images in individual social media posts, fusing this information together into actionable information points for decision makers, and providing an assessment of the trustworthiness of this information. We propose a general solution framework and discuss a system developed in collaboration with NATO which combines state-of-the-art deep learning, natural language processing, computer vision, and information fusion models to provide a reliable, actionable, real-time situational awareness for supporting decision making in humanitarian crisis logistics. In addition to the technical approach, we also discuss important practical aspects of this project including the development and validation process, challenges encountered along the way, and key lessons learned.

Effective Crisis Response to COVID-19 in Tourism and Hospitality: The Intersection of Crisis Leadership and Crisis Decision-Making

COVID-19 pandemic has considerably impacted the tourism and hospitality industry, posing significant challenges for the associated stakeholders. Effective crisis response is an essential tool for mitigating the negative impacts of this ongoing crisis. The paper explores the intersection of crisis leadership and crisis decision-making in the context of COVID-19. The study reviews the elements of crisis leadership in tourism and hospitality, and highlights its role in shaping an effective and informed crisis response. The paper provides novel insights and implications for the industry as a guidance for coping with the current and future crises.

Summaries

Summaries

The Psychology of Nuclear Brinkmanship

Abstract Conventional wisdom sees nuclear brinkmanship and Thomas Schelling's pathbreaking “threat that leaves something to chance” as a solution to the problem of agency in coercion. If leaders cannot credibly threaten to start a nuclear war, perhaps they can at least introduce uncertainty by signaling that the decision is out of their hands. It is not so easy to remove humans from crisis decision-making, however. Often in cases of nuclear brinkmanship, a human being retains a choice about whether to escalate. When two sides engage in rational decision-making, the chance of strategic nuclear exchange should be zero. Scholars have explained how risks associated with accidents, false warnings, and pre-delegation creep into nuclear crises. An investigation of how chance can still produce leverage while leaders retain a choice over whether and when to escalate adds to this scholarship. There remains an element of choice in chance. For a complete understanding of nuclear brinkmanship, psychology and emotion must be added to the analysis to explain how leaders make decisions under pressure. Human emotions can introduce chance into bargaining in ways that contradict the expectations of the rational cost-benefit assumptions that undergird deterrence theory. Three mechanisms of nuclear brinkmanship—accidents, self-control, and control of others—illustrate how a loss of control over the use of nuclear weapons is not a necessary element of the threat that leaves something to chance. Choice does not have to be eliminated for a risk of catastrophic destruction to remain.