Interorganizational networks and decision making in technological disasters

✍ Scribed by Marie-Christine Therrien

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1995
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 864 KB
• Volume: 20
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0925-7535
• DOI: 10.1016/0925-7535(94)00071-a

✦ Synopsis

Organizations responding to disasters must coordinate their actions in order to be efficient. Interorganizational networks are put in place to respond to a disaster. Uncertainty and turbulence in the organizational environment pose a special problem in the coordination and decision making of disaster management. This paper presents the importance of interorganizational coordination in disasters.

Two technological disasters are presented as case studies. The analysis of the two disasters is based on two typologies: the typology of problems developped for the study of a PCB fire (Saint-Basile-Le-Grand, Qutbec) and a typology of interorganizational networks. An analytical comparison of the two disasters is also presented to better understand decisions in each case. The two events present a relative similarity in their origin (technology), but the different focalisation of issues led to a different response. This article is based on an exploratory methodology.