Extreme teams: Toward a greater understanding of multiagency teamwork during major emergencies and disasters.

Abstract

Major emergencies are extreme team decision making environments. They are complex, dynamic, high-stakes and fast paced events, wherein successful resolution is contingent upon effective teamwork. Not only do emergency teams coordinate at the intrateam level (e.g., police team), but they are increasingly required to operate at the interteam level (e.g., police, fire and ambulance teams). This is in response to the desire for networked and cost-effective practice and due to the evolving nature of modern threats, such as extreme weather events and terrorist attacks, which require a multi- rather than single-agency response. Yet the capacity for interoperability between emergency teams is under researched and poorly understood. Much of the teamwork research is based on student-samples or in artificial lab settings, reducing the salient contextual demands of emergencies (e.g., high-stakes, meaningful risk). Furthermore, the minimal research that has been conducted has tended to provide broad descriptive accounts of challenges faced during emergencies, but failed to develop and test solutions. This article identifies what is known about emergency teams and highlights why it is an important and timely area for research. It will focus on the challenges and solutions to three areas of team processing: cooperation, coordination, and communication. Future research must have a solutions-focused approach. This can be oriented around areas: training, sociotechnical networks, and policies/procedural guidelines. Greater collaboration between academics and practitioners can grow knowledge in this domain, ensuring that interventions to improve emergency teamwork are both contextually grounded and empirically validated. (PsycINFO Database Record

Police Perfection: Examining the Effect of Trait Maximization on Police Decision-Making

“…One choice was an approach outcome, in which they could actively seeking to make a positive impact on the situation. The second choice was an avoidance outcome, that allowed them to withdraw and prevent further harm (see Power, 2018 ). Summing the total number of approach decisions made (maximum score: 10) across the scenarios gave an overall approach/avoidance tendency (high score: approach, low score: avoid).…”

Team Dynamics Theory: Nomological network among cohesion, team mental models, coordination, and collective efficacy

“…This rationale also holds true for "multi-teams" (i.e., a macro-team formed by different teams), which can only be established through shared goals. For instance, in emergency situations, police, paramedics, and firefighters come together and remain united (i.e., cohesion) because of a shared goal [169]. After t 0 , other team processes will develop and mutually influence one another, much like different organs in the human body develop over time and interact with one another after fecundation.…”

Information Sharing across Group Boundaries by Knowledge Brokers during a Disaster – Lessons for the Tourism Industry

“…In a disaster, information travels across different boundaries: within an organization such as units, departments or hierarchically (Schraagen et al, 2010;Sitas, Reyers, Cundill, Prozesky, Nel, & Esler, 2016); across organizations such as different emergency response agencies Power, 2018) and from organization to community and from community to organization (Quarantelli, 1988). Bharosa et al 2010study information sharing across multiple agencies during a disaster.…”