The common operating picture as a collaborative governance tool for urban resilience

Abstract

Through analysis of the narratives of participants to the London Common Operating Picture (COP), this study discusses the “information warehouse” and the “trading zone” theoretical perspectives on the COP that consider it, respectively, as an information system to share common information on a crisis or as a relational space of learning in which common meanings enable decision‐making and coordination. The trading zone approach has started to examine its role as a coordination tool, but there is little empirical research on how it can foster network's collaboration. Through an exploration of the COP participants' positions as boundary spanners, this study puts forward the trading zone perspective, showing that in London it has become a regular mechanism of collaboration and coordination. It argues that boundary spanners operate at multiple boundaries that enable network's collaboration and coordination, and the relational character of the COP create bonds of trust that foster collaboration and common understandings on the role of communication, collaboration, information sharing, and coordination for the security of all. We show that the COP is a relational space that creates a sense of belonging to a common community of security that believes in the role of networks' information sharing and collaboration for urban resilience.