Improving communication resilience for effective disaster relief operations

CITATION

Shittu, E., Parker, G., & Mock, N. (2018). Improving communication resilience for effective disaster relief operations. Environment Systems and Decisions, 38(3), 379–397.

For library access / research help in a similar topic: anyangoceline19@gmail.com 

ABSTRACT
The objective of this paper is to identify strategies to improve the resilience of interagency communication between relief organizations and the community when dealing with an emergency. This research draws from frameworks including information theory, organization design, and how the private sector has learned and evolved from the challenges of information flow to provide guidance to disaster relief agencies. During times of emergency, private organizations as well as public authorities must coordinate in real time to create an effective response. When coordination is absent, failure results, as was seen after Hurricane Katrina and the Haiti Earthquake. Using data that the authors collected immediately after these disasters, two case studies of systemic failure are presented to extract lessons that might be used to improve communication resilience through coordination between parties in humanitarian relief operations. Recent emergency response trends are identified, and the paper argues that the persistence of response failures is not surprising, in part because response organizations normally operate independently, and their operations evolve at different rates. As a result, the organizational interfaces that enable rapid integration during a disaster naturally degrade and may be weak or absent. Integrating the literature on information processing theory and organization design with the data from the two case studies, the paper proposes that increasing the resilience of disaster response systems can be achieved by (1) improving the interoperability and information flow across organizational boundaries; (2) increasing the synergies between organizations on adapting new technology such as social media for the coordination of structured and unstructured data for use in decision-making, and (3) increasing the flexibility of relief organizations to use external resources from areas not affected by disasters on an opportunistic basis. The paper concludes by discussing resilience enhancing solutions including boundary spanning investments and argues that effective emergency response does not result from sporadic or intermittent efforts but rather requires sustained investment, continuous monitoring, and data collection.


REFERENCES

1. Aldrich H, Herker D (1977) Boundary spanning roles and organization structure. Acad Manag Rev 2:217–230
2. Altay N, Labonate M (2014) Challenges in humanitarian information management and exchange: evidence from Haiti. Disasters  https://doi-org.ezproxy.scu.edu.au/10.1111/disa.12052
3. Altay N, Pal R (2014) Information diffusion among agents: implications for humanitarian operations. Prod Oper Manag 23(6):1015–1027
4. Antunes D, Palma-Oliveira JM, Linkov I (2017) Enhancing organizational resilience through risk communication: basic guidelines for managers. In: Linkov I, Palma-Oliveira J (eds) Resilience and risk: NATO science for peace and security series C: environmental security. Springer, Dordrecht
5. Balcik B, Beamon B, Krejci C, Muramatsu K, Ramirez M (2010) Coordination in humanitarian relief chains: practices, challenges and opportunities. Int J Prod Econ 126(1):22–34
6. Banipal K (2006) Strategic approach to disaster management: lessons learned from hurricane Katrina. Disaster Prev Manag 15(3):484–494
7. Bechky BA (2006) Gafers, gofers, and grips: role-based coordination in temporary organizations. Organ Sci 17(1):3–21
8. Berg B, Lune H (2004) Qualitative research methods for the social sciences. Pearson, Boston
9. Bharosa N, Janssen M (2009) Reconsidering information management roles and capabilities in disaster response decision-making units. In: Proceedings of the 6th International ISCRAM conference, Gothenburg
10. Bhattacharjee A, Lossio R (2011) Evaluation of OCHA response to the Haiti earthquake. Technical report, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
11. Boin A, McConnell A (2007) Preparing for critical infrastructure breakdowns: the limits of crisis management and the need for resilience. J Conting Crisis Manag 15(1):50–59
12. Bolton MJ, Stolcis GB (2008) Overcoming failure of imagination in crisis management: the complex adaptive system. Innov J 13(3):1–12
13. Broniatowski DA (2018) Building the tower without climbing it: progress in engineering systems. Syst Eng.  https://doi-org.ezproxy.scu.edu.au/10.1002/sys.21426
14. Carley KM, Harrald JR (1997) Organizational learning under re: theory and practice. Am Behav Sci 40(3):310–332
15. Chen J, Chen THY, Vertinsky I, Yumagulova L, Park C (2013) Public–private partnerships for the development of disaster resilient communities. J Conting Crisis Manag 21(3):130–143
16. Cohen WM, Levinthal DA (1990) Absorptive capacity: a new perspective on learning and innovation. Adm Sci Q 35(1):128–152
17. Comfort LK (1999) Shared risk: complex systems in seismic response. Emerald, Bingley
18. Comfort LK, Siciliano MD, Okada A (2011) Resilience, entropy, and efficiency in crisis management: the January 12, 2010, Haiti earthquake. Risk Hazards Crisis Public Policy 2(3):1–25
19. Comfort LK, Ko K, Zagorecki A (2004a) Coordination in rapidly evolving disaster response systems the role of information. Am Behav Sci 48(3):295–313
20. Comfort LK, Dunn M, Johnson D, Skertich R, Zagorecki A (2004b) Coordination in complex systems: increasing efficiency in disaster mitigation and response. Int J Emerg Manag 2(1/2):62–80
21. Crowston K (1997) A coordination theory approach to organizational process design. Organ Sci 8:157–175
22. Curtis CA (2015) Understanding communication and coordination among government and service organisations after a disaster. Disasters 39(4):611–625
23. Curtis CA (2016) Organizational networks in times of crisis: lessons from Katrina. J Conting Crisis Manag 26:202–211
24. Cutter SL, Gall M (2007) Hurricane katrina: a failure of planning or a planned failure. In: Felgentreff C, Glade T (eds) Naturrisken und Sozialkatastrophen. Springer, Berlin
25. Day JM (2014) Fostering emergent resilience: the complex adaptive supply network of disaster relief. Int J Prod Res 52(7):1970–1988
26. Day JM, Melnyk SA, Larson PD, Davis EW, Whybark DC (2012) Humanitarian and disaster relief supply chains: a matter of life and death. J Supply Chain Manag 48(2):21–36
27. Deluque I, Shittu E, Deason J (2018) Evaluating the reliability of efficient energy technology portfolios. EURO J Decis Process.  https://doi-org.ezproxy.scu.edu.au/10.1007/s40070-018-0077-4
28. Dixon RG (2006) Systems thinking for integrated operations: Introducing a systemic approach to operational art for disaster relief. Technical report, DTIC document
29. Ediger D, Jiang K, Riedy J, Bader DA, Corley C, Farber R, Reynolds WN (2010) Massive social network analysis: mining twitter for social good. In: 39th international conference on parallel processing (ICPP), IEEE, pp 583–593
30. FEMA (2005a) FEMA helping families into long-term housing. Technical report, FEMA news release HQ-05-373. https://reliefweb.int/report/united-states-america/usa-fema-helping-families-long-term-housing
31. FEMA (2005b) Katrina survivors: save receipts for disaster-related expenses. Technical report, FEMA news release 1604–182. https://www.fema.gov/news-release/2005/12/19/katrina-survivors-save-receipts-disaster-related-expenses
32. Ferris E, Ferro-Ribeiro S (2012) Protecting people in cities: the disturbing case of Haiti. Disasters 36(S1):S43–S63
33. Fine CH (1999) Clockspeed: winning industry control in the age of temporary advantage. Basic Books, New York
34. Fine CH (2000) Clockspeed-base strategies for supply chain design. Prod Oper Manag 9(3):213–221
35. Francis R, Bekera B (2014) A metric and frameworks for resilience analysis of engineered and infrastructure systems. Reliab Eng Syst Saf 12:90–103
36. Galbraith JR (1973) Designing complex organizations. Addison-Wesley, Reading
37. Gao H, Barbier G, Goolsby R (2011) Harnessing the crowdsourcing power of social media for disaster relief. IEEE Intell Syst 26(3):10–14
38. Gaydos J, Luz G (1994) Military participation in emergency humanitarian assistance. Disasters 18(1):48–57
39. Glaser BG, Strauss AL (1967) The discovery of grounded theory: strategies for qualitative research. Aldine de Gruyter, Hawthorne
40. Goldsteen R, Schorr J (1991) Demanding democracy after three mile island. University Press of Florida, Gainesville
41. Hristidis V, Chen SC, Li T, Luis S, Deng Y (2010) Survey of data management and analysis in disaster situations. J Syst Softw 83(10):1701–1714
42. Huber G (1991) Organizational learning: the contributing processes and the literatures. Organ Sci.  https://doi-org.ezproxy.scu.edu.au/10.1287/orsc.2.1.88
43. Iannella R, Henricksen K (2007) Managing information in the disaster coordination center: lessons and opportunities. In: Van de Walle B, Burghardt P, Nieuwenhuis C (eds) Proceedings of the 4th international ISCRAM conference
44. IOB (2011) Assisting earthquake victims: evaluation of Dutch cooperating aid agencies (SHO) support to Haiti in 2010. Technical report, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, OECD. http://www.oecd.org/countries/haiti/49050164.pdf
45. James T, Cubano M (2012) DOD and NGOs in Haiti: a successful partnership. World Med Health Policy 4(2):1–6
46. Lachner J, Hellwagner H (2008) Information and communication systems for mobile emergency response. In: Proceedings of United Information Systems Conference (UNISCON’08). Springer, New York, pp 213–224
47. Larkin S, Fox-Lent C, Eisenberg DA, Trump BD, Wallace S, Chadderton C, Linkov I (2015) Benchmarking agency and organizational practices in resilience decision making. Environ Sys Decis 35(2):185–195
48. Lawrence PR, Lorsch JW (1967) Managing differentiation and integration. Organ Environ 2(2):267–274
49. Linkov I, Palma-Oliveira JM (2017) Resilience and risk: methods and application in environment, cyber and social domains. Springer, New York
50. Linkov I, Trump BD, Fox-Lent K (2016) Resilience: Approaches to risk analysis and governance, in IRGC, Resource Guide on Resilience, EPFL International Risk Governance Center, Lausanne, v29-07-2016. https://www.irgc.org/riskgovernance/resilience/. Accessed Dec 26 2017
51. Litman T (2006) Lessons from Katrina and Rita: what major disasters can teach transportation planners. J Transp Eng 132(1):11–18
52. Liu BF, Kim S (2011) How organizations framed the 2009 H1N1 pandemic via social and traditional media: implications for U.S. health communicators. Public Relat Rev 37(3):233–244
53. Lundin RA, Sderholm A (1995) A theory of the temporary organization. Scand J Manag 11(4):437–455
54. Martin K (2006) Independent panel reviewing the impact of Hurricane Katrina on communications networks. Report and Recommendations to the Federal Communications Commission
55. Mattox KL (2006) Hurricanes Katrina and Rita: role of individuals and collaborative networks in mobilizing/coordinating societal and professional resources for major disasters. Crit Care 10(1):205
56. McLuhan E (2008) Marshall McLuhan’s theory of communication: the Yegg 1. Glob Media J 1(Inaugural Issue):25
57. McLuhan E, McLuhan M (2011) Theories of communication. Peter Lang
58. Meier P (2012) Crisis mapping in action: how open source software and global volunteer networks are changing the world, one map at a time. J Map Geogr Libr 8(2):89–100
59. Meier P, Brodock K (2008) Crisis Mapping Kenya’s Election Violence, iRevolution blog. http://irevolution.net/2008/10/23/mappingkenyas-election-violence. Accessed 23 Oct 2008
60. Miles M, Huberman A (1994) Qualitative data analysis: an expanded sourcebook. Sage Publications, London
61. Mock N, Garfield R (2007) Health tracking for improved humanitarian performance. J Prehospital Dis Med 22(5):377–383
62. Nolte IM, Boenigk S (2011) Public–nonprofit partnership performance in a disaster context: the case of Haiti. Public Adm 89(4):1385–1402
63. O’Sullivan TL, Kuziemsky CE, Toal-Sullivan D, Corneil W (2013) Unraveling the complexities of disaster management: a framework for critical social infrastructure to promote population health and resilience. Soc Sci Med 93, 238–246
64. Olejarski AM, Garnett JL (2010) Coping with Katrina: assessing crisis management behaviours in the big one. J Conting Crisis Manag 18(1):26–38
65. Parker GG, Anderson EG (2002) From buyer to integrator: the transformation of the supply-chain manager in the vertically disintegrating firm. Prod Oper Manag 11(1):75–91
66. Parker CF, Stern EK, Paglia E, Brown C (2009) Preventable Catastrophe? the hurricane Katrina disaster revisited. J Conting Crisis Manag 17(4):206–220
67. PCCIP (1997) President’s commission on critical infrastructure protection, critical foundations: protecting America’s infrastructures. Technical Report, Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection. https://fas.org/sgp/library/pccip.pdf
68. Pine JC (2010) The contributions of management theory and practice to emergency management. https://training.fema.gov/hiedu/docs/emt/contributions%20of%20manage.doc
69. Pyles L, Svistova J, Ahn S, Birkland T (2017) Citizen participation in disaster recovery projects and programmes in rural communities: a comparison of the Haiti earthquake and hurricane Katrina. Disasters.  https://doi-org.ezproxy.scu.edu.au/10.1111/disa.12260
70. Rangan S, Samii R, Van Wassenhove LN (2006) Constructive partnerships: when alliances between private firms and public actors can enable creative strategies. Acad Manag Rev 31(3):738–751
71. Rivera JD, Nickels AE (2014) Social capital, community resilience, and faith-based organizations in disaster recovery: a case study of mary queen of Vietnam Catholic Church. Risk Hazards Crisis Public Policy 5(2):178–211
72. Santos JR, Yu KD, Pagsuyoin SA, Tan RR (2014) Time-varying disaster recovery model for interdependent economic systems using hybrid input-output and event tree analysis. Econ Syst Res 26(1):60–80
73. Schein EH (1972) Professional education: some new directions. McGraw-Hill, New York
74. Schneider B, Bowen DE (2010) Winning the service game. In: Maglio PPP, Kieliszewski CAA, Spohrer JCC (eds) Handbook of service science, service science: research and innovations in the services economy. Springer, New York, pp 31–59
75. Scholtens A (2008) Controlled collaboration in disaster and crisis management in the Netherlands, history and practice of an overestimated and underestimated concept. J Contingencies Crisis Manag 16(4):195–207
76. Scholtens A, Jorritsma J, Helsloot I (2014) On the need for a paradigm shift in the Dutch command and information system for the acute phase of disasters. J Conting Crisis Manag 22(1):39–51
77. Scott WR (2008) Institutions and organizations: ideas and interests. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks
78. Sellnow T, Seeger M, Ulmer R (2002) Chaos theory, informational needs, and natural disasters. J Appl Commun Res 30(4):269–292
79. SEPA (2018) Build back better: reimagining and strengthening the power grid of Puerto Rico. Technical Report by Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA)
80. Shittu E (2014) Energy technological change and capacity under uncertainty in learning. IEEE Trans Eng Manag 61(3):406–418
81. Shittu E, Baker E (2009) A control model of policy uncertainty and energy R&D investments. Int J Glob Energy Issues 32(4):307–327
82. Shittu E, Parker G, Jiang X (2015) Energy technology investments in competitive and regulatory environments. Environ Syst Decis 35(4):453–471
83. Smith J (2010) Tufts map steered action amid chaos. The Boston Globe, Boston
84. Starbird K, Palen L (2011) “Voluntweeters”: Self-organizing by digital volunteers in times of crisis. In: Conference on computer human interaction (CHI 2011). Vancouver
85. Sutton J, Palen L, Shklovski I (2008) Backchannels on the front lines: emergent uses of social media in the 2007 southern California wildfires. In: Fiedrich F, van de Walle B (eds) Proceedings of the 5th International ISCRAM Conference, Washington, DC
86. Szajnfarber Z, Gralla E (2017) Qualitative methods for engineering systems: why we need them and how to use them. Syst Eng 20(6):497–511
87. The Economist (2012) Japan after the 3/11 disaster. The death of trust. https://www.economist.com/node/21549917
88. Thompson JD (1967) Organizations in action. McGraw-Hill, New York
89. Tomasini RM, Van Wassenhove LN (2009) Humanitarian logistics. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke
90. Townsend FF (2006) The federal response to hurricane Katrina. Lessons learned. http://library.stmarytx.edu/acadlib/edocs/katrinawh.pdf
91. Uzzi B (1996) The sources and consequences of embeddedness for the economic performance of organizations: the network effect. Am Sociol Rev 61(4):674–698
92. Uzzi B (1997) Social structure and competition in inter-firm networks: the paradox of embeddedness. Adm Sci Q 42(1):35–67
93. Van Wassenhove LN (2005) Humanitarian aid logistics: supply chain management in high gear. J Oper Res Soc 57(5):475–489
94. Van Wassenhove LN, Pedraza Martinez AJ (2012) Using OR to adapt supply chain management best practices to humanitarian logistics. Int Trans Oper Res 19(1–2):307–322
95. VanRooyen M (2013) Effective aid: ensuring accountability in humanitarian assistance. Harvard Int Rev 35(2):12
96. Verma S, Vieweg S, Corvey WJ, Palen L, Martin JH, Palmer M, Schram A, Anderson KM (2011) Natural language processing to the rescue? Extracting “Situational awareness” tweets during mass emergency. Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence
97. Wachtendorf T (2004) Improvising 9/11: organizational improvisation following the World Trade Center disaster. Ph.D. Thesis, Department of Sociology, University of Delaware
98. Waibel A, Steusloff H, Stiefelhagen R, Watson K (2009) Computers in the human interaction loop. Springer, London
99. Weeks M (2007) Organizing for disaster: lessons from the military. Bus Horiz 50(6):479–489
100. Whybark DC, Melnyk SA, Day JM, Davis E (2010) Disaster relief supply chain management: new realities, management challenges, emerging opportunities. Decis Line 41(3):4–7
101. Womack J, Jones D, Roos D (1990) The machine that changed the world: based on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 5-million dollar 5-year study on the future of the automobile. Simon & Scribner, New York
102. Yates D, Paquette S (2011) Emergency knowledge management and social media technologies: a case study of the 2010 Haitian earthquake. Int J Inf Manag 31(1):6–13
103. Yuan W, Wang J, Qiu F, Chen C, Kang C, Zeng B (2016) Robust optimization-based resilient distribution network planning against natural disasters. IEEE Trans Smart Grid 7(6):2817–2826