Public management scholars have long sought to understand design principles that can promote the adaptability and resilience of complex organizational systems operating in uncertain and turbulent environments. Perhaps nowhere is this need more acute than in developing systems for responding to complex disasters. One concept that has received significant attention in discussion of resilient systems design is the notion of redundancy; however, existing literatures offer contradictory theories as to whether redundant designs enhance or undermine system resilience. Using case study data from three large‐scale wildfire events, this article extends the theoretical discussion of redundancy by developing a typology of redundancy strategies and investigating their application and associated consequences in incident response. Our findings reveal four principal ways redundancy can be integrated into system design: backup, cross‐functionality, duplication and cross‐checking. Further, each redundancy type is associated with its own capabilities for enhancing system resilience as well as its own set of risk factors that, if left unmanaged, could undermine system functioning. Findings demonstrate how understanding both the potential value and risk portfolio associated with each type of redundancy clarifies the management challenge for responders when employing these strategies.

We leverage economic theory, network theory, and social network analytical techniques to bring greater conceptual and methodological rigor to understand how information is exchanged during disasters. We ask, "How can information relationships be evaluated more systematically during a disaster response?" "Infocentric analysis"-a term and approach we develop here-can (a) define an information market and information needs, (b) identify suppliers of information and mechanisms for information exchange, (c) map the information exchange network, and (d) diagnose information exchange failures. These steps are essential for describing how information flows, diagnosing complications, and positing solutions to rectify information problems during a disaster.application and interpretation of the approach. This focus on information flow within an information market allows us to empirically document information asymmetries and their consequences, as well as provide insight into how such asymmetries might be addressed for better disaster management. More specifically, we demonstrate how infocentric analysis can be used to document the information markets activated during an incident, the nature and structure of these markets, and adequacy of the information exchange among the subnetwork of responders active within a given information market.This article proceeds in seven sections. First, we lay out theoretical concepts from economics, network theory, and SNA that inform thinking about information exchange and how these concepts apply in a disaster context. Second, we describe our innovative approach-"infocentric analysis"-that brings greater conceptual and methodological rigor to understanding information supply, demand, and exchange failures during a disaster response. In the remaining sections, we demonstrate how this approach can be used to improve understanding of information exchange within the specific context of a forest wildfire event.

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