Shifting the frame: how internal change agents contextualize and co-construct strategic responses to grand challenge issues within and beyond the firm

In this study, I aim to understand business responses to social-ecological grand challenges. Prior research has suggested that problem identification and attribution help to foster meaning and action on societal issues. In particular, framing theory has offered significant insight into individual actors' cognitive processes, their skillful articulation of socially resonant interpretive frames, and the role of particular actor categories and repertoires in framing success. At meso and macro levels, researchers have tended to focus on social movements and the outcomes of highly charged political contests between these groups and state actors. As such, we know far less about the co-creative mechanisms and contextual ‘raw materials' that underpin meaning making activities and interaction between groups, especially in instances where the focus is on firms and the significance being attached to ambiguous societal issues for which they are not directly responsible. A key outstanding question is therefore: how do firm-internal agents interpret, signify and mobilize organizational responses to grand challenges? In an effort to address these lacunae, this study explores the proactive efforts of three firms to interpret the complexity of social-ecological grand challenges that they share with the rest of society and to address these issues through meaningful and mitigating action. My inductively derived theoretical model of ‘interactional framing for issue advancement' shows how the active engagement of external influences by internal change or ‘signifying agents' facilitates action on grand challenges within and beyond the firm. While framing activities charge grand challenge issues with meaning and help to organize actors' understanding of, experience, and action around these issues, material affordances and interaction with external actors provide the enabling environment for resonant interpretations to take hold and to facilitate enactment. Grounded in my cases, the model also depicts the progressive sequencing of signifying agent efforts across three broad stages: Introduction and Disruption, Experimentation, and Enactment. My analysis contributes to the management literature by suggesting that the signification work of firm-internal agents is a process of mediation, shaped by the distinct and emergent character of grand challenges and the interplay of social and material mechanisms. Because such issues require a greater emphasis on problem-solving and novel sources of information, my account contrasts with conventional representations of meaning-making as a relatively straightforward line of action from individual logics ‘pulled down' from institutional systems and packaged attractively to appeal to ‘outsiders' less involved in the processes of signification. It also provides an alternative to the popular view of meaning construction as a ‘contest' or essentially dispute-oriented process. Instead, I argue that grand challenge issue advancement demands a more intricate, interactional and contextual process of meaning-making by interested actors and issue proponents internal and external to the firm. The model of signification work I offer in this study thus more fully captures the perspective that actors do not simply assess and attach importance to complex issues, but construct the very nature of the issue itself, and that this construction is a precursor to collaborative action on grand challenges

The Willingness and Ability of First Responders to Report for Duty During Disasters: A Case Study of Local Law Enforcement Officers

Role abandonment of employees is a vulnerability of first responder organizations that can be exposed when disasters occur. Organizational vulnerabilities created by role abandonment of first responders can be reduced by understanding the willingness and ability of employees to report for duty during disasters. To gain a better understanding of law enforcement organizational vulnerability to disasters, this study utilizes an online survey disseminated to police officers (n = 314) working for a police department along the Gulf Coast to determine their willingness and ability to report for duty and examines the barriers and facilitators impacting their decision to report for duty during six disaster scenarios. The results showed that the overwhelming majority of participants were somewhat willing to very willing and somewhat able to very able to report for each of the disaster scenarios presented in the survey. The willingness and ability of local law enforcement officers may vary depending on the disaster type. Officers who were willing and able identified fewer barriers than the officers who were unwilling and unable across each disaster scenario presented. In terms of facilitators, officers who were willing and able identified more facilitators which would increase their willingness and ability to report across each disaster scenario presented. Local law enforcement organizations may be able to reduce vulnerabilities by implementing disaster specific policies that address the barriers and facilitators of their officers to report for duty

Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation: Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

This Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX) has been jointly coordinated by Working Groups I (WGI) and II (WGII) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The report focuses on the relationship between climate change and extreme weather and climate events, the impacts of such events, and the strategies to manage the associated risks. The IPCC was jointly established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), in particular to assess in a comprehensive, objective, and transparent manner all the relevant scientific, technical, and socioeconomic information to contribute in understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, the potential impacts, and the adaptation and mitigation options. Beginning in 1990, the IPCC has produced a series of Assessment Reports, Special Reports, Technical Papers, methodologies, and other key documents which have since become the standard references for policymakers and scientists.This Special Report, in particular, contributes to frame the challenge of dealing with extreme weather and climate events as an issue in decisionmaking under uncertainty, analyzing response in the context of risk management. The report consists of nine chapters, covering risk management; observed and projected changes in extreme weather and climate events; exposure and vulnerability to as well as losses resulting from such events; adaptation options from the local to the international scale; the role of sustainable development in modulating risks; and insights from specific case studies

Snowedout Atlanta: An Analysis of how Stakeholders Engaged in a Facebook Online Support Group During a Crisis

In 2014, snowstorms hit the southern U.S. and paralyzed the Atlanta, Georgia metropolitan area. The people of Atlanta and the surrounding areas accessed a Facebook group page, SnowedOut Atlanta (SOA), and some used it to strategically survive the storm. The social media posts produced by the residents of Atlanta before and after the storm provide a rich case of study for health-related, crisis Communication and social media scholars. The objective of this thesis was to investigate the use of social media for the SOA Facebook group through the analyses of wall posts. In order to explore this line of inquiry, quantitative analyses were conducted. The study examined one online support group through a content analysis of member posts to the SOA Facebook page. This analysis examined the uses of affective and cognitive needs of members of an online support group during a crisis event through the lens of uses and gratification theory (Katz et al., 1973). A total of 986 posts were coded for seven categorical variables. The content analysis yielded interesting results that shed light on the adoption of social media during a crisis or disastrous event. The results concluded that the SOA Facebook page was used to satisfy more cognitive needs as oppose to affective needs. Analyses also indicated that women posted to the page more than men. This research had many implications for health and risk Communication professionals. Future research should aim to develop a deeper understanding of why and how social media supports strategic and tactical risk Communication efforts a community, organization or corporation may employ during a disastrous or crisis event

Networks of change: extending Alaska-based communication networks to meet the challenges of the anthropocene

Thesis (Ph.D.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2017The Anthropocene is a contested term. As I conceptualize it throughout this dissertation, the Anthropocene is defined by an increased coupling of social and environmental systems at the global scale such that the by-products of human processes dominate the global stratigraphic record. Additionally, I connect the term to a worldview that sees this increased coupling as an existential threat to humanity's ability to sustain life on the planet. Awareness that the planet-wide scale of this coupling is fundamentally a new element in earth history is implicit in both understandings. How individuals and communities are impacted by this change varies greatly depending on a host of locally specific cross-scale factors. The range of scales (physical and social) that must be negotiated to manage these impacts places novel demands on the communication networks that shape human agency. Concern for how these demands are being met, and whose interests are being served in doing so, are the primary motivation for my research. My work is grounded in the communication-oriented theoretical traditions of media ecology and the more recent social-ecological system conceptualizations promoted in the study of resilience. I combine these ideas through a mixed methodology of digital ethnography and social network analysis to explore the communication dynamics of four Alaska-based social-ecological systems. The first two examples capture communication networks that formed in response to singular, rapid change environmental events (a coastal storm and river flood). The latter two map communication networks that have formed in response to more diffuse, slower acting environmental changes (a regional webinar series and an international arctic change conference). In each example, individuals or organizations enter and exit the mapped network(s) as they engage in the issue and specific communication channel being observed. Under these parameters a cyclic pattern of network expansion and contraction is identified. Expansion events are heavily influenced by established relationships retained during previous contraction periods. Many organizational outreach efforts are focused on triggering and participating in expansion events, however my observations highlight the role of legacy networks in system change. I suggest that for organizations interested in fostering sustainable socialecological relationships in the Anthropocene, strategic intervention may best be accomplished through careful consideration of how communicative relationships are maintained immediately following and in between expansion events. In the final sections of my dissertation I present a process template to support organizations interested in doing so. I include a complete set of learning activities to facilitate organizational use as well as examples of how the Alaska Native Knowledge Network is currently applying the process to meet their unique organizational needs

Innovations towards Climate-Induced Disaster Risk Assessment and Response

A changing climate may portend increasing disaster risk across many countries and business enterprises. While many aspects of the hazards, exposure and vulnerability that constitute disaster risk have been well studied, several challenges remain. A critical aspect that needs to be addressed is the rapid response and recovery from a climate-induced disaster. Often, governments need to allocate funds or design financial instruments that can be activated rapidly to mobilize response and recovery. The proposed research addresses this general problem, focusing on a few selected issues. First, there is the question of how to rapidly detect and index a climate hazard, such as a flood, given proxy remote sensing data on attributes that may be closely related to the hazard. The second is the need to robustly estimate the return periods of extreme climate hazards, and the temporal changes in their projected frequency of occurrence using multi-century climate proxies. The third is the need to assess the potential losses from the event, including the disruption of services, and cascading failure of interlinked infrastructure elements. The fourth is the impact on global and regional supply chains that are induced by the event, and the associated financial impact. For each of these cases, it is useful to ground an analysis and the development of an approach around real world examples, which can then collectively inform a strategy for emergency response. Here, this will be pursued through an analysis of flooding in the Philippines, livestock mortality induced by drought and freezing winter in Mongolia, Hurricane Sandy impacts in New York, supply chain impacts in Thailand, and an end to end analysis of the potential process using data from Thailand and Bangladesh. Collectively, these analyses are expected to inform climate hazard planning and securitization processes with broad applicability at a regional to national level

Innovations towards Climate-Induced Disaster Risk Assessment and Response

A changing climate may portend increasing disaster risk across many countries and business enterprises. While many aspects of the hazards, exposure and vulnerability that constitute disaster risk have been well studied, several challenges remain. A critical aspect that needs to be addressed is the rapid response and recovery from a climate-induced disaster. Often, governments need to allocate funds or design financial instruments that can be activated rapidly to mobilize response and recovery. The proposed research addresses this general problem, focusing on a few selected issues. First, there is the question of how to rapidly detect and index a climate hazard, such as a flood, given proxy remote sensing data on attributes that may be closely related to the hazard. The second is the need to robustly estimate the return periods of extreme climate hazards, and the temporal changes in their projected frequency of occurrence using multi-century climate proxies. The third is the need to assess the potential losses from the event, including the disruption of services, and cascading failure of interlinked infrastructure elements. The fourth is the impact on global and regional supply chains that are induced by the event, and the associated financial impact. For each of these cases, it is useful to ground an analysis and the development of an approach around real world examples, which can then collectively inform a strategy for emergency response. Here, this will be pursued through an analysis of flooding in the Philippines, livestock mortality induced by drought and freezing winter in Mongolia, Hurricane Sandy impacts in New York, supply chain impacts in Thailand, and an end to end analysis of the potential process using data from Thailand and Bangladesh. Collectively, these analyses are expected to inform climate hazard planning and securitization processes with broad applicability at a regional to national level