The challenges of change in future emergency management: Conclusions and future developments

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Human error during the multilevel responses to three Australian bushfire disasters

The scale and complexity associated with the coordinated response to natural disasters inevitably produce human errors. However, little is known about the frequency and distribution of human error at different levels of coordination during disasters. The purpose of this research was to explore this phenomenon for selected catastrophic bushfires in Australia. To accomplish this, we used the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System that has been widely applied to accidents but is untested with respect to the complexity and temporality of disasters. The results identified that decision errors made during these disasters differed depending upon the level of coordination but were associated with information uncertainty, fatigue, coordination complexities, procedural violations, and degraded personal interactions. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Lt

Values and complexities in assessing strategic-level emergency management effectiveness

Emergency managers working at a strategic level play a pivotal role in managing operational needs as well the needs of political elites engaged in crisis management and meaning-making. Evaluating emergency performance has been widely regarded as problematic, in part because of various stakeholder interests and because it is so subjective. This paper explores the values of personnel working in emergency management at a strategic level as well as the conditions that limit their effectiveness as they attempt to align the needs of different stakeholders. The surveys and interviews conducted suggest that what constitutes success is both subjective and contested by different stakeholders. There is a need to establish a broader perspective on what constitutes success when evaluating emergency response