Should I Be Aware of the Information of Other Actors - Transversal Communication in Crisis Management

Abstract

In crisis management, multi-organizations are involved to deal with the events; however these services encounter several problems that make the transversal communication and information sharing very hard, with an ineffective mutual awareness during crisis response. Whereas, among the factors for crisis management success, figures prominently mutual awareness and awareness information, this requires effective interaction of the relevant information between emergency actors. But in the reality this communication is ineffective and influences the decision making. Thus, to support emergency response, enhance "awareness information" and transversal communication between different emergency actors, our contribution in this paper is to understand the organizations involved in emergency response and analyse the communication between actors. Thus we study at first, the vertical and the transversal communication in inter/intra emergency organizations. Second, we highlight and analyse the root causes of communication problems that actors encounter in operating level. Third, we classify by category the major information needed in emergency response and finally, we present the dependency between awareness information and actions achievement.

Forked Times: Documenting “Ordinary Time” in Everyday Life

“…Marcella and Lockerbie (2016) found that the managers of offshore oil and gas installations engaged in two forms of information behavior during ordinary and crisis time: maintaining safe operations, and reacting to a rapidly changing emergency situation during crises. Much of the scholarship considers aspects of the collaborative information practices of members of multidisciplinary communities of practice (Taber and Taber 2013), e.g., trust and respect (Sonnenwald et al 2014), awareness, and coordination of activities (Heath and Luff 1992, Sarcevic 2007, Saoutal, Matta, and Cahier 2014. Westbrook (2009) conceptualizes "crisis" in a less immediate way, focusing on everyday information needs within three progressive stages of leaving an abusive partner: considering a change from an abusive situation, adjusting to change (involvement with shelter/police); and preparing for life after the change.…”