Network Management in Emergency Response

• Author: Deb Bodeau,Jane Fedorowicz,JoAnn M. Brooks
• Date: 01 October 2013
• Published date: 01 October 2013
• DOI: 10.1177/0095399712445874
• Subject Matter: Articles

Administration & Society

45(8) 911 –948

© 2012 SAGE Publications

DOI: 10.1177/0095399712445874

aas.sagepub.com

445874AAS45810.1177/0095399712445

874Brooks et al.Administration & Society

© 2012 SAGE Publications

1Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA

2The MITRE Corporation, Bedford, MA, USA

3Bentley University, Waltham, MA, USA

Corresponding Author:

JoAnn M. Brooks, School of Information Studies, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244, USA.

Email: jbrook03@syr.edu

Network Management

in Emergency

Response: Articulation

Practices of State-Level

Managers—Interweaving

Up, Down, and Sideways

JoAnn M. Brooks1, Deb Bodeau2, and

Jane Fedorowicz3

Abstract

Large-scale emergency response requires management of collaborative net-

works that stretch across government agencies and levels, and that include

nonprofit and private organizations. Management of such collaborative net-

works has been recognized as a research area in need of further study.

Inter-organizational complexities associated with these collaborative net-

works give rise to unanticipated contingencies that compound issues directly

associated with an emergency itself. Planning for such response is therefore

intrinsically limited, and emergency managers must bridge the gaps via ar-

ticulation practices in real-time. In this paper, the authors draw on empirical

data to develop a conceptual framework characterizing dimensions of inter-

organizational complexity and domains of response coordination through

which emergency managers articulate large-scale response efforts. The

framework is illustrated with examples of state-level emergency managers

articulating threads of networked response efforts concurrently through

vertical and horizontal dimensions of inter-organizational complexity, and

logistical, jurisdictional and governance domains of coordination. Theoreti-

cal and practical implications are discussed.

Article

912 Administration & Society 45(8)

Keywords

network management, emergency response, articulation practices, inter-

organizational coordination

Although “every emergency is local” (Comfort, 1999; Dynes, Quarantelli, &

Kreps, 1972), many of the budgetary and personnel resources for responding

to major disasters and terrorist activity in the United States issue from the

federal level. Processes of emergency response therefore give rise to gaps and

tensions between local participants and federal participants, with state-level

participants finding themselves in the middle, negotiating management of

those gaps and tensions while at the same time addressing urgent, situation-

ally specific aspects of the emergency.

Emergency response is typically managed through a flexible organiza-

tional structure known as the Incident Command System (ICS; Bigley &

Roberts, 2001; Department of Homeland Security [DHS], 2008a). Daniel

Moynihan (2009), in his work on network governance for crisis response,

notes that although ICS is generally described by DHS as a highly centralized

mode of network governance, much of crisis response is actually more depen-

dent on network collaboration. In this article we extend that work, shedding

light on situated practices at the state level during formulation of emergency

response. Of critical importance in our perspective is the fundamental gap

between emergency preparedness and mitigation plans on one hand, and the

situated actions (Suchman, 2007) necessary for provision of emergency

response on the other. We present empirical findings about the activities in

which state-level emergency managers engage as intermediaries: we describe

the practices through which these public servants orchestrate collaboration

across a wide network of organizations and participants, piecing together

nonroutine portions of response efforts for each specific emergency.

We develop our results using a practice-based approach (Brown & Duguid,

2001; Fosher, 2009; Orlikowski, 2000; Suchman, 2007; Weber & Khademian,

2008), and we highlight how the actions of state-level public managers dur-

ing emergency response operations can be understood as articulation work

(Strauss, 1988). Through their articulation practices, emergency managers

reconfigure an area’s or a group’s networks and capacities, working up and

down levels of government, as well as across levels (within a state and with

cooperating external organizations), encountering complicating factors along

the way. We find that their just-in-time practices interweave across logistical,

jurisdictional, and governance domains of coordination. We illustrate our

findings with data from observation of emergency response exercises and

Brooks et al. 913

interviews of emergency response personnel. These results contribute to

general knowledge about what happens on the ground during emergency

response, and to scholarly knowledge about network management during

emergency response. We conclude by discussing theoretical implications

for the study of public network management and practical implications for

understanding and improving emergency response, including the design of

supportive technologies.

Background

Effective response to emergency or other forms of crisis depends on inter-

agency collaboration and networks—formal and informal (Kapucu, Arslan,

& Collins, 2010; Solansky & Beck, 2009). Management and governance of

such interagency networks are areas of growing research interest (Agranoff,

2006, 2007; Hall & O’Toole, 2000; Moynihan, 2009; Provan & Kenis,

2008; Rhodes, 2007); however, most of the current research is oriented

toward longer term policy networks, leaving the area of network manage-

ment for emergency and crisis response understudied, with Moynihan’s

(2009) work on ICSs a notable exception. Meanwhile, planning aspects of

emergency preparation have traditionally been oriented toward facilitating

routine types of operations; yet it is the management of nonroutine aspects

of emergencies that is especially challenging but has not been studied in

detail. This is the phenomenon at the root of Birdsall’s (2009a, 2009b)

“Looking for the FEMA guy” experience, and which he emphasizes in his

response to comments challenging the validity of his reported experience

(Birdsall, 2010). Our work, therefore, addresses the recognized need for

empirical research in these areas (Agranoff, 2006, 2007; Hall & O’Toole,

2000; Moynihan, 2009; Provan & Kenis, 2008; Rhodes, 2007).

As emergency response entails managing collaboration across network

relations within one or more hierarchies enabled by differing information and

communication technologies (ICTs), there is a general recognition that an

incident management system needs to be flexible and scalable (Somers &

Svara, 2009). The ICS, which is now part of the National Incident Management

System (NIMS), is a flexible structure designed for managing emergency

response operations and adapted by many states for training and emergency

preparation guidance1 (Bigley & Roberts, 2001; DHS, 2008a).

ICS is a widely applicable management system designed to enable effec-

tive, efficient incident management by integrating a combination of