A New Perspective on Coordination in Crisis Management

What is it about?

Emergency services struggle to coordinate in response operations because in a crisis the circumstances change rapidly and operations often take place in different locations. In this article we describe that the way in which crisis managers coordinate deviates from the dominant integration perspective. In contrast, crisis managers cope with discontinuity and ambiguity by engaging in working around procedures, delegating tasks, and demarcating expertise. This changes the way in which they coordinate from integration towards making use of elements of fragmentation.

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Why is it important?

For many years the integration perspective is dominant in coordination literature. While this explanation holds for relatively stable and predictable environments, in crisis situations it turns out to be impossible to achieve integration. By explaining how crisis managers actually work on the incident site, we increase our understanding of why integration is so hard to achieve and what alternative approach crisis managers develop to deal with an unpredictable and rapidly changing environment. Knowledge about the actual coordination practices on the incident site enables the response agencies themselves to innovate their preparation by updating their training and education programs.

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