A Multifaceted Approach to Understanding Resilience of Incident Management Teams

Abstract

At the onset of the disasters, incident management teams (IMTs) are established to direct and support on-scene tactical activities in the field. IMTs cope with challenges of disasters such as constantly changing situations, limited resources, and inaccurate information. Therefore, resilience, an ability to adjust performance to such challenges, has emerged as an essential attribute of IMTs. As a narrated collection of journal articles, this dissertation aims to answer two general research questions: ‘What are characteristics of resilience of IMTs?’ and ‘How can we analyze the characteristics of resilience of IMTs?’ To answer these questions, this dissertation consists of six journal articles (five peer-reviewed publications [Articles #1 - #5] and one journal manuscript in preparation [Article #6]). Articles #1, #2, and #3 address the first research question regarding the characteristics of resilience of IMTs and Articles #4, #5, and #6 address the second research question regarding the analysis of resilience of IMTs. Specifically, the analysis of resilience of IMTs is conducted through two essential lenses of organizational resilience: work-as-done (WAD) and work-as-imagined (WAI). With respect to the traits of IMT resilience, Article #1 documents an integrative review of 55 articles and presents findings about definitions, characteristics of IMT resilience, and common tools used to support resilience of IMTs. Regarding resilience of real-world IMTs, Articles #2 and #3 provide characteristics of resilience of government and hospital IMTs that responded to Hurricane Harvey in 2017 based on semi-structured interviews. With respect to the analysis of the characteristics of IMT resilience, Article #4 develops a cognitive system model of an IMT and develops a novel Interaction Episode Analysis (IEA) method that incorporates interactions between three cognitive system elements (i.e., humans, technical tools, and tasks) in IMTs to enable granular analyses of WAI and WAD. Next, by applying the IEA to data collected from naturalistic observations of two high-fidelity IMT exercises at Emergency Operations Training Center (EOTC), Article #5 presents six WAD episodes regarding the IMT’s information management tasks and reveals qualitative and quantitative differences between the WAD episodes and between the two IMTs. Article #6 elicits WAI episodes corresponding to the WAD episodes and investigates the reasons behind the differences between the two IMTs. Based on semi-structured interviews with seven IMT training course designers and instructors, the WAI episodes were generated. Quantitative analyses revealed of notable differences between the two IMTs and subsequent qualitative analyses have revealed possible reasons why the differences between the two IMTs have taken place. Such reasons include the non-occurrence of critical interactions that were anticipated to occur in the WAI episodes and the occurrence of unexpected interactions in the WAD episodes. Findings regarding the characteristics of IMT resilience and the IEA method to identify gaps between WAI and WAD in IMTs presented in this dissertation serve as a basis for future research to better examine and enhance IMT’s resilient actions in future disasters