Post-Inquiry Sensemaking: The Case of the ‘Black Saturday’ Bushfires

Abstract

We examine post-inquiry sensemaking by emergency management practitioners following an inquiry into the most damaging bushfire disaster in Australia’s history. We theorize a model of post-inquiry sensemaking with four distinct but overlapping phases during which sensemaking becomes more prospective over time. In addition to providing important insights into what has, hitherto, been a neglected arena for sensemaking studies, i.e. post-inquiry sensemaking, we contribute to the understanding of sensemaking more generally. Specifically, we show the complex nature of the relationship between sensemaking and equivocality, explain how multiple frames enhance sensemaking, and explore temporality in sensemaking over time.

Learning to learn from bushfire: Perspectives from Victorian emergency management practitioners

“…However, public inquiries and their influence in the practice world of emergency management are nuanced, complex, and contestable particularly when we reflect on the role of Royal Commissions (Dwyer & Hardy, 2016). Royal Commissions and their reports of recommendations have also been found to create significant equivocality in emergency management organizations (Dwyer et al, 2020). Despite these findings, little scholarly attention has focussed on EMP and their perspectives on the various ways that learning can occur from public inquiries after bushfire events.…”

“…Although studies have brought attention to the challenges faced by police and emergency service officers in their response routines to risk, emergencies, and crises (Dwyer et al, 2020), less is known about the pressures they face afterwards (Dwyer & Hardy, 2016). Through interviews from a study with emergency management practitioners (EMP) who were called before the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission (VBRC), this article begins to explore this important area of study and shows that public review processes generally, and Royal Commissions specifically, add to the ongoing burdens felt by EMP after crisis events because of the criticisms they face and difficult circumstances they re-live within such forums (Cutcher & Dwyer, 2020).…”

Hiding in plain sight: Vulnerability, public administration, and the case of Covid‐19 hotel quarantine

“…Accordingly, such review processes may not necessarily provide practitioners with lessons about how to prepare for future events. Therefore, the opportunity for a more prospective focus is lost and we run the risk of re‐living the same failures again (Dwyer et al., 2021 ).…”

“…PAO remain under‐researched in terms of how lessons from organizational failures are translated into knowledge, which enables them to foresee and prevent future accidents (Dwyer et al., 2021 ). Accordingly, this paper seeks to develop insights into ways they can learn from such experiences by examining the failures surrounding the initial Covid‐19 HQ.…”

“…To date, public inquiry recommendations rarely focus on ways in which community actions bring harmful circumstances into existence (Dwyer, 2021 ). Instead, they have repeatedly blamed the leadership of managers and functional experts in PAO for accidents which could have been avoided if community behaviours and actions were heedful of safety advice surrounding Covid‐19 and other hazards (Dwyer et al., 2021 ; McLennan et al., 2014 ). With ever increasing levels, types, and complexities (Perrow, 1961 , 1967 ) associated with events such as pandemics and natural hazards, I propose that it is timely to modernize public review processes in a way which re‐interprets and reframes accountability as a shared responsibility of PAO, society, and community.…”