Communication processes in the Hellenic fire corps: a comparative perspective

My research explores critical issues involved in emergency management in a front-line, emergency service – the fire brigade – in Greece, Germany and Britain. It is designed to identify the problems in the communication conduct among fire-fighters during emergency responses, to examine the causes of these problems and to suggest ways to overcome them that should allow European countries to adopt more effective policies. It aims to make a contribution to the academic study of crisis management in organizations through an analysis of actual, real-time, responses to emergencies such as industrial fires, plane crashes, road traffic accidents and train collisions. Organizations such as fire services are seen as communication events and a platform where shared cognitive meanings and shared value commitments shape the actions of the interactive agents. In this vein, emergencies are the outworking of communicative disruption in organizations, in which fire services face a triple jeopardy: they have to manage other organizations’ crises (such crises include those arising in large chemical and oil factories), their own crises (for example, failing to communicate because of inadequate radio spectrum) and natural disasters (such as earthquakes and forest fires)