| Three simulated disaster responses--an earthquake, a major flood, and a hurricane--are analyzed to determine whether real-time organizational restructuring occurs in High Reliability Response Organizations (HRROs). HRROs are the emergency management component within a municipality charged with the responsibility of managing the extraordinary information processing loads that occur during a disaster. HRROs represent an "enacted reliability" that emerges to handle situations including time critical incidents and severely constrained resources in error free and reliable ways. This study presents a set of methodologies and quantifiable variables that decouple these hypercomplex interactions and identify certain response patterns and organizational behavior characteristics unique to HRROs.; A longitudinal multiple-case-study design is employed in this research. Three HRROs participating in the Integrated Emergency Management Course, designed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), are observed as they manage a simulated disaster in real time. Observations focus on the interactions between different functional areas and hierarchical levels within the HRRO. In this study, the broadest social network that defines the boundaries is referred to as the macro-level organization. The macro-level organization consists of the following functional areas: (1) Government, (2) Police, (3) Fire, (4) Public Works, (5) Mass Care, (6) Emergency Operations, (7) Emergency Medical, (8) Dispatch, and (9) Others. The micro-level organization stratifies the organization into three groups within each functional area. These groups are the policy group, the coordination group, and the operations group. This sub-grouping allows us to assess the extent of interactions that are ongoing within a functional area as well as the cross-functional interactions. These two units of analysis enable us to get a two-dimensional view of the emergency response.; Data are collected on telephone contacts between individuals at both the macro level and the micro level. These telephone interactions are accumulated in ten-minute time segments and measured using four sociometric variables--connectivity, hierarchy, graph efficiency, and the external/internal index. This analytical approach is useful in formulating hypotheses for certain prototypical response patterns as well as developing baselines for evaluating various types of disasters and organizations that must respond to them.; The study found that HRROs tend to maintain their hierarchical structures throughout the disaster instead of restructuring into polycentered groups or tactical teams. This suggests that consistent informal structures do not emerge during the high-tempo and emergency periods of the disaster as initially hypothesized. There is some evidence of improved communication and response efficiencies as the HRRO learns and formulate response strategies over the course of a disaster. |
