Studying the so-called refugee crisis in Germany, this article asks about the effectiveness of crisis management by a large number of local administrations, each acting upon the same crisis impulse of a high number of asylum seekers who entered the country in 2015 and 2016. Instead of theorizing the exact administrative design features fit for an effective crisis response, the focus is on the ability of administrations to adjust. We conceptualize such shifts in administrative practices as informal and temporary (latent) deviations from routine action along two dimensions of organizational behavior typically dominant in private and nonprofit sector organizations, respectively: internal flexibility and citizen participation (hybridity). Novel survey data from 235 out of 401 German district authorities are reported. We test the effects of different forms of latent hybridization on administrative effectiveness using regression modeling. Findings indicate that changes in administrative practices towards more flexible and participatory action had a positive impact on self-reported crisis management effectiveness. The effect of flexible action was especially pronounced in districts that were allocated higher shares of asylum seekers. These findings advance theory on crisis management and bottom-up implementation, highlighting the ability of local agencies to shift practices as a key explanatory factor for effective administrative action in exceptional situations.

During the so-called refugee crisis of 2015/16 an estimated 25% of the German population was actively engaged as volunteers. Volunteers thus constitute a group of citizens who are high stake actors in crisis management due to their personal experience and direct interaction with the local public administration. This paper scrutinizes how the interaction between volunteers and local administrations in crisis management affects volunteers’ trust in the local public administration. Following the literature on administrative crisis management and cross-sector collaboration, the paper defines relevant features of crisis management performance. Methodologically, the paper relies on regression analysis using online survey data from a snowballing sample comprising 900 volunteers who engaged during Germany’s 2015/16 migration crisis. The results show that performance perception of the local administration, and the formalization of the different volunteer organizations explain how volunteers’ trust in the public administration changes over the course of the crisis.

Flexibility in administrative crisis management is a frequently reported determinant for a successful crisis response. But there is little agreement about how to conceptualize, measure and explain flexibility. We use a three-dimensional measure of administrative flexibility, capturing employees’ decision leeway, staff mobility, and organizational innovation in a crisis response. We then develop and test an explanation of variation in flexibility, focusing on the refugee crisis of 2015/16 in Germany and analyzing survey and socio-economic data from 235 districts using linear regression analysis. The main finding is that differences in flexibility cannot be explained by the scope of the crisis in a district, but by organizational factors: Agencies with politically unconstrained leadership, with higher financial resources and more crisis-related experience, respond more flexible. These findings contribute to theorizing and explaining administrative flexibility in and beyond crisis management and have practical implications for crisis learning and preparation.

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