Crisis and Disaster Management
[Module Number]
[Date of Submission]
GIVEN THAT DISASTERS CREATE OPPORTUNITY FOR ACTIVE LEARNING, WHY DO THEY REPEAT?
Introduction
According to the United Nations (1992) disaster is considered as a serious disruption of functioning of the entire society which causes widespread human, material or even environmental losses which exceed the ability of the affected people to deal with or survive using only their own resources (cited in Maon, Lindgreen & Vanhamme 2009). During these past few years, there has been an increase in terms of incidence of natural disasters around the globe which lead to increasing loss of life and damage to property (Garatwa & Bollin 2002). As a matter of fact, the number of natural disasters which include floods, cyclones and droughts has quadrupled (Oxfam 2007). This led disaster relief operations to be ranked high in terms of political agendas (Kovács & Spens 2007). In 2007, the United Nations reported that globally, an average of 400 to 500 natural disasters strike per year, up from a yearly average of 125 during early 1980s. Thus, the number of people being affected by the said disasters has risen from some 174 million to more than 250 million every year. Aside from different natural disasters, it is also important to consider the different disasters that are connected to man-made situations or event.
As a result, risk and disaster management have become more and more important in any type of organization and even integrated in both national and local government. There are different techniques and tools that are available; however the process of implementing risk and disaster management in an organization is not an easy task to be done. This is because of the fact that, aside from the sound methodology and procedural aspect, cultural factors including social aspects, managerial knowledge, attitude and skills have great impact on the successful implementation of risk and disaster management within a given organization (Toft & Reynolds 2005). Thus, the main goal of disaster management is to prevent the negative impact of disasters to the lives of people as well as important properties or assets.
However, despite of that, disasters are considered as inevitable. Therefore, disaster and risk management principles focuses on the adage learn from your experience and learn from your mistakes. In addition, other important reasons to learn about crises goes back to the old adage that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it (Elliott, Smith & Mcguinness 2000). However, in spite of different studies which showed that disasters can help to create learning opportunities for individuals and organizations in order to prepare for the future, together with the increasing number of empirical studies which show that disaster are rarely unique and often display very similar preconditions, disasters, together with its risks continue to happen in different organizations and places in the world (Toft & Reynolds 2005).
This paper will focus on the aspect of organizational learning from crisis, together with the different factors which include trust, scapegoating and organizational culture as vital barriers to organizational learning. It will also pertain on beliefs, values, assumptions and communication strategies as a central elements involved in learning process. In addition, it will also present different organizational examples and case studies that will help to explain the ideas that are related to the disaster learning process.
Disaster as an Important Learning Opportunity
The enormity of the disaster problem at the global region as well as local levels still continues to challenge the effectiveness of existing approaches, strategies as well as mechanisms for disaster reduction and response. While contemporary disaster management promotes the comprehensive approach the embrace all the phases of the disaster management cycle, in actuality, much focus has been on disaster response and relatively lesser activities have been undertaken on disaster prevention and mitigation, as well as other phases of the disaster management cycle. Furthermore, the challenge is to translate effectively the different disaster reduction policies and approaches into a concrete program strategies and activities at the community and local levels (de Guzman & Mercado 2005).
Busenberg defines learning process as the “institutional arrangements and political events that shape individual learning” (2001, p. 173 cited from Birkland 2006). Lopes (1992) & Russel (1995) stated that disasters can be used as vital learning opportunities (cited in Dietz & Stern 2002, p. 136). This is because of the fact that disaster will enable different individuals and groups to focus on the new perspective which can help them to focus on policy making. One of the biggest examples of the said situation was the September 11 attack. The said event had enable to open a huge window of opportunity for policy change as well as learning because it had changed both the perception of the mass and the elite regarding the risk and likelihood of terrorist attacks. Furthermore, it had also helped to create a much broader sense that the current policy tool of the country were not working or, in one point to another, were inadequate, with connection to the newly revealed nature of the international terrorist threat. As a result, it had changed the social construction of the problem regarding terrorism, as it was transformed from a problem of law enforcement and intelligence gathering to one best met through affirmative and even aggressive military, economic as well as diplomatic efforts (Birkland 2006, p. 33). However, in spite of the fact that the said disaster had happened and several local and international rules, regulations and policies have been changed; terrorism is still one of the major crimes in the world. Thus, it can be said that almost every month, there are major terrorism which causes death and resources loss which affect the peaceful lives of every individual in that particular place. In that case the question, given that disasters create opportunity for active learning, why do they repeat?
It is important to consider that learning evolve around information and data gathered from different events. Thus, it happen at an individual or collective level as an entire community learns their lesson from the different information that they have acquired together. Thus, without experience information cannot be gathered, furthermore, knowledge cannot be developed, therefore without accurate knowledge; effective recovery actions will never be that effective. It is important to remember that risks must be reduced in the process of recovery in order to prevent repeating the disaster. As a result, the recovery help to provides the physical opportunity and as a collective mindset in order to introduce changes in the structural and non-structural risk reduction elements, and the said factors must be coordinated and connected (International Recovery Platform 2007). From the said perspective, the learning process can be explained. Therefore, without any experience from any crisis or disaster, people and the whole community will not be able to gather information and data which can add up to their knowledge, because it enables them to become ready and informed on what to do in a given event or situation.
There are different reasons why disaster and crisis happens, it can be due to inability or incapacity of the different authorities who are responsible in controlling any events, or it can be due to the lack of knowledge of the people regarding what to do in a given situation. However, disasters are considered as evitable, and it can happen anytime, anywhere and may cause loss of life and different resources. That’s the reason why different organizations are focusing on the improvement of their risk and disaster management. Different organizations are using the data that have been gathered from the past experience can create their rules and regulations as well as Standard Operating Procedure, which can be used in order to guide the people from a given disaster, at the same time help to prevent any damage towards the people.
Considering the literature about organizational learning, there is a large body of work on the learning curve. The learning curve is considered as an empirical finding which show that in general, experience produced improvement. Early empirical studies about learning curve showed that the log of unit costs tends to reduce in linear manner with the log of cumulative production volume. For instance, cumulative production experience tends to lower costs in terms of shipbuilding and automotive production, nuclear power plant production and coal generation (Argote & Epple 1990, Jowkow & Rose 1985 & Zimmerman 1982 in Haunschild & Sullivan 2002). More recent work has moved away its focus on cost reduction and productive improvement to other outcomes of learning. These studies have shown that experience can help to improve customer service, at the same time increases the survival rates of hotels and banks (Ingram & Baum 1997, Baum & Ingrain 1998 & Kim & Miner 2000 in Haunschild & Sullivan 2002).
Therefore, it can be said that there different factors in the environment, particularly in the social aspect which cause hindrance towards learning of people or organizations in coping with different disasters and its risks.
Cultural Issues on Socio-Technical Organization of Disaster Management
Humans are continually exposed to different information from the social and physical environment. Therefore, the way in which humans react to the information is considered as a reflection of culture (Scarman Centre 2002). However, the impact of culture on disaster management is somewhat complex because of the fact that people of similar nationality or ethnic group may not have the same cultural background. Aside from that, there are different aspects of culture at different levels of analysis which include national, inter and intra-organization and professional. Differences may exist with connection on education, religion, economic and political beliefs (Waring 1992). For that reason, the systematic analysis of the organizational structure of human activity defines the concept of cultural theory, at the same time, offer more powerful analytical tool on the different issues that are connected with cultural relations among organizations. As a result, due to the involvement of groups of people with different perceptions, values and attitudes enables risk to be perceived not as an isolated individual, but as a social organism who acts within a system of social relations (Pidgeon & Hood 1992). Figure 1 shows the four types of risk perceptions based on cultural biases and social relations.
Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 1 Risk Perspective Based on Cultural Biases and Social Relations
Adapted from: (Scarman Centre 2002)
Focusing on these risk perceptions, it is important for organizations to have some degree of both grid and group dimensions in terms of structuring emergency response services, at the same time, the cultural context of emergency operations must be described as organizational hierarchy. Above all, it is important to consider different factors which include space, time, resources and labor, together with the scope, frequency, mutuality and boundary (Frosdick 1995). Based on this principle, it can be said that the primary reason why even though disasters open opportunities for learning, the different level of perspectives of individuals prohibit and cause hindrances for further learning or familiarity with the risks or hazardous impact of a given disaster.
Based on the cultural framework of organizations under stress, it can be said that the cultural differences between emergency response organizations may cause hindrances towards holistic approach on emergency management. It means that the issues of learning, training, hierarchy and authority, communication and decision-making, secrecy and blame, language and resources may affect the perceptions of the organizations about themselves at well as the coordinated disaster management (Rozakis 2007). Secrecy might prevent the learning process at the same time keep down the co-ordination among agents (Pidgeon 1996). This is because, the agents or entities who are involved in the disaster which includes the emergency services and the public will not have enough knowledge or information about what is going on in their environment, and what are the possible causes of that particular event. As a result, these individuals will not be able to prepare themselves in using their acquired knowledge and skills in a particular event.
In addition, the issue of blame can also have a direct influence on the organizational culture which focuses on the issue of liability which has to be targeted directly on the decision-making process (Hood & Jones 1996). One great example is the incident of repeated floods in Athens in 2002 which caused the resignation of the General Director of General Secretarial for Civil Protection (GSCP) which led to downgraded role of GSCP within the entire context of emergency operations (Bennett 2001). However, Pidgeon (1998) suggested that the no-blame culture will not be a perfect solution; instead boundaries must be recognized between liable and tolerable mistakes. Organizations tend to focus on the surface when attempting to learn from failures. Commonly, they focus on the active failures, rather than trying to dig deeper and uncover the problematic latent conditions (Reason 1997). This is connected with the attribution theory that tends to focus on the person, not the situation as the cause of event (Fiske & Taylor 1984 in Haunschild & Sullivan 2002). This is particularly true when the events have serious consequences, which result to blame the operator. Attributing the causes of an accident to human error, somewhat, inhibits the ability of an organization to learn from an accident due t the fact that once the human being has been fired, transferred or replaced, organization assumed that there will be no more problem in their respective system (Sagan 1993). However, different studies showed that human error is seldom the only cause of an accident or disaster (Perrow 1984 & Reason 1997 in Haunschild & Sullivan 2002).
Focusing on the issue of culture and hierarchy, in different emergency response organization, it is required that these agencies assume different responsibilities and the fact that some officials make the decisions. In this area, the King’s Cross disaster pointed out a problematic approach in terms of authority. On November 18, 1987, a small fire on the Piccadilly line escalator at the King’s Cross underground station was allowed to burn, and resulted in dangerous flashover which ultimately claimed 31 lives, and even injured a huge number of people, which made it as a major disaster for the British transport history, and had resulted in a formal investigation being carried out by the Department of Transport under the direction of Desmond Fennel OBE QC (University of Leicester 2004). These safety culture and risk perceptions of the involved groups have a great impact on the said disaster: police focused on managing the people, the fire service focused on the fire, the ambulance service focus on treating the injured. The main problem lies on the London Transport staffs, because they do not have the clear responsibility, or it was not included in the framework of the said organizational hierarchy and safety culture. Because London Transport staffs appeared to be reducing the fire regularly, the safety culture of the said organization did not considered fire as a legitimate hazard, however, the staffs performed as a matter of routine work (Rozakis 2007). These shows that each and every individual and group are doing their own strategies in order to come up with the solution to the disaster, without considering the actions being done or employed by other groups, and how their actions can affect the overall goal or objective of the operation.
Communication has a great impact on the decision-making of an organization, as well as between the different agents. One of the major organizational problems which occur in a disaster or emergency is what is communicated or not. It can be observed on the ineffective radio communication among the officers of South Yorkshire Police during the Hillsborough Stadium Disaster in 1989. On the other hand, different researches and studies showed that during emergencies and disasters, formal group tends not to communication with each other in efficient and effective manner. This can be observed on the public evacuation in King’s Cross fire, where in the public must have been considered as a subject of coordination between the police and fire service. In the said event, four different cultures were mainly involved for the elucidation of the said problems: police, fire, service, London Transport staff and the passengers. The police responded the situation in three-fold; first they quickly discovered the nature of the situation; then they called for the fire service; and assumed that the movement for people in an upward direction was their responsibility, which pushed them to instruct the London Transport staff to block the escalators. The said decisions created a problem because they have implemented the movement of the people without any reference to the fire service, London Transport staff and senior police officers. The police who responded in King’s Cross forgot the importance of crisis communication, which lead the agents to ignore several recommendations from passengers during the incubation period of the fire at the station (Rozakis 2007). The said disaster would have been prevented if the police have established a link with fire service to deal with the property in the situation. Aside from that, it is also important to focus on the training issue, the police were not supposed to be trained in evacuating after an underground fire. On the other hand, the London Transport staff, although evacuation is part of their training, they are not knowledgeable on using fire extinguishers (Rozakis 2007). The said situation can also be observed on one of the most dangerous disaster in Amsterdam, Holland. On October 4, 1992, a Boeing 747 owned by Israeli airline E1A1 carrying 70 tons of fuel and 1147 tons of commercial cargo and weight of 280 tons crashed in the south-east Amsterdam which result the plane to flew in two linked blocks of 10 storey flats and collides with the buildings (University of Leicester 2004). The Coordinating Centre, Housing Department and Medical Service Department were the primary departments that are responsible in public relations. However, the Housing Department were not represented in the Coordination Centre which meant that the said department were not always aware regarding the current or updated information about the activities of overall disaster management team. However, the said problem was solved because in the United Kingdom, it is recognized that to achieve a combined and coordinated response to a major disaster the capabilities of all agencies likely to be involved should be connected through an integrated emergency management arrangement Thus, the adoption of an agreed structure enables all of the entities involved to recognize and be aware of their roles and responsibilities in the combined response and how the differing levels of management interrelate (University of Leicester 2004).
Above all, the disaster management team did not focus on auctioned learning from the previous disasters, particularly the Oxford Circus. The potential and opportunity for isomorphic learning must be a vital aspect of the safety culture of an organization. Furthermore, the symbolic connection between the gents constructed the actions taken by each one of them: the police assumed responsibility in evacuating or moving the public, because the London Transport staffs and the passengers believed that the police are responsible for the said action (Rozakis 2007).
The disaster and risk management team of King’s Cross should learn from the team in Walton town. On April 11, 1987, the emergency services were called because of a loaded petrol tanker that overturned while driving around a bend in the said town, which cause another car with a woman inside, crushed underneath the tanker. This situation give three pressures for the team, first to get the woman out of the car, disperse the people to a safer place due to a huge possibility of explosion. The said operation was successful because of good communication and proper coordination of different authorities and individuals that are involved in the said event. The fire team were properly coordinated and connected with the safety and medical team and the other way around, the said factor was important because it enables the said departments or group to learn from each other in order to handle the entire situation because like what have mentioned, the case or the scene did not only focus on the safety of the people and services but as well as the fire itself, which will cause major disasters. In addition, the support and the behavior of the public have a great influence in the said event. This is because when the principal emergency services arrived at the scene, the people were confronted by a situation where in the public was actively engaged and communicating in response. Furthermore, the members of the Women’s Royal Voluntary Service were also become alerted and involved in the process of supplying responses staff as well as short-term evacuees with refreshments and shelter. Aside from that, with connection to the problem of petrol leakage in the river, the member of the public verified their skills, resourcefulness and their local knowledge of the scene to prevent different damages to the river wildlife (University of Leicester 2004).
Conclusion
It is true that disasters or experiences in a given calamities enables different individuals, groups and more importantly, organizations to learn different things that could help to prevent any similar events or risks to happen. In connection with the learning theories, repetition of a given knowledge or event enables individual to be familiar with the given situation or knowledge that enables him or her to acts with accordance to what he or she remembers. Disasters enable different individual and organizations to gather information and data which can be used or applied in the future when a similar event happens.
However, it can be seen that disasters still happens and it is taking up number of lives, together with assets or properties and the environment. This is despite of the ongoing effort of organizations in integrating disaster management in their overall system.
Based on the different data, information and cases presented in this paper, there are different factors which affect learning process of individual and even the entire organization. These factors have a great impact on why a given disaster happens again and again, with the similar negative impact or outcome.
First, it is important to conclude that disasters are inevitable. Therefore, no matter what preparations or precautions are prepared, there are things and events that happen that are out of control of any individual or management. Disasters occur in different time and approach. Thus, it can be said that there is no perfect disaster and risk management techniques. However, it is better to be prepared, in order to lessen the negative impact of a given disaster.
On the other hand, there are different factors which prevent further learning from a disaster. First, cultural issues have a great impact on learning in disaster. This is important because culture affects the way how humans react to a given information or situation. The problem that is connected with this is the complexity of culture, especially now, in the era of globalization. Different people who belong in different group have different beliefs and cultures which can affect their perspective of risks. As a result, it will be hard for the emergency services team to create a holistic emergency response that will focus on cover the said perspective of risk.
Another important factor which prevent learning is the fact that most of the emergency agencies consider their responsibility or role as their primary task, therefore, they forgot to incorporate further learning in coping with a given situation. This can be seen on the different situation where in coordination of different agencies and organizations are needed in order to come up with a given plan or operation.
Above all, the most important hindrance to further learning is the fact that most of organizations and individuals tend to focus on the surface issues or factors, or those things that are observable, which commonly lead to blame. Due to that, organizations failed to analyze the in-depth reasons and more important factors which cause previous disasters. Due to that, it is important to focus on analyzing the learning process and its connection with the organizational form and structure.
References
Birkland, T. 2006, Lessons of Disaster: Policy Change After Catastrophic Events, Georgetown University Press.
Chiu-Hou, M. 2006. “Review of Learning from Disaster, A Management Approach by Brian Toft & Simon Reynolds (2005).” Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management. vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 107 – 111. http://www.politicalreviewnet.com/polrev/reviews/JCCM/R_0966_0879_092_1006217.asp
de Guzman, E. & Mercado, O. 2005, Disaster Risk Management. http://www.mv.undp.org/Images/Final_Report_on_DRM_Training_20050710_14.pdf.
Dietz, T. & Stern, P. 2002. New Tools for Environmental Protection: Education, Information, and Voluntary Measures, National Academies Press
Eburn, M. 2005. Emergency Law: Rights, Liabilities, and Duties of Emergency Workers and Volunteers, Federation Press
Elliott, D., Smith, D. & Mcguinness, M. 2000. “Exploring the Failure to Learn: Crises and the Barriers to Learning.” Review of Business. vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 17 +
Frosdick, S. 1995. “Safety culture in British stadia and sporting venues.” Disaster Prevention and Management, vol. 4 no.4, pp.13-21
Garatwa, W. & Bollin, C. 2002, April. Disaster Risk Management: Working Concept. Deutsche Geselschaft Für
Haunschild, P. & Sullivan, B. N. 2002. “Learning form Complexity: Effects of Prior Accidents and Incidents on Airlines’ Learning.” Administrative Science Quarterly. vol. 47 no. 4, pp. 609 +
Hood, C., Jones, D.K.C. (Eds) 1996. “Liability and Blame: Pointing the Finger or Nobody’s Fault” in Accident and Design, UCL Press Limited, London
Kovács, G. & Spens, K.M. 2007. “Humanitarian Logistics In Disaster Relief Operations”, International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management. vol. 37 no.2, pp.99-114
Krischenbaum, A. 2004. Chaos Organization and Disaster management, Marcel Dekker, New York
Man, C. H. 09/25/06. Review of Learning from Disaster, A Management Approach by Brian Toft, Simon Reynolds. http://www.politicalreviewnet.com/polrev/reviews/JCCM/R_0966_0879_092_1006217.asp
Maon, F., Lindgreen, A. & Vanhamme, J. 2009. “Developing Supply Chains in Disaster Relief Operations Through Cross-Sector Socially Oriented Collaborations: A Theoritical Model.” Supply Chain Management: An International Journal. vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 149 – 164
International Recovery Platform 2007. Learning from Disaster Recovery – Guidance for Decision Makers. http://www.recoveryplatform.org/BookProjectSummary/ENG/BOOK2_ENG_Jan2007.pdf
Oxfam 2007. Climate Alarm: Disasters Increase As Climate Change Bites. Briefing Paper No. 108, Oxford, Oxfam
Pidgeon, N., Hood, C., Jones, D., Turner, B. & Gibson, R. 1992. Risk Perception, Risk, Analysis, Perception, Management, Royal Society, London
Pidgeon, N. 1996. “Technocracy, democracy, secrecy and error”, in Hood, C., Jones, D.K.C. (Eds),Accident and Design, UCL Press Limited, London
Pidgeon, N. 1998. “Safety culture: key theoretical issues.” Work and Stress, vol. 12 no.3, pp.202-16.
Reason, J. 1997. Managing the Risks of Organizational Accidents. Ashgate, Sydney, Australia
Rozakis, M. 2007. “The Cultural Context of Emergencies: Seeking for A(n) Holistic Approach on Disaster Management.” Disaster Prevention and Management. vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 201 – 209
Sagan, S. 1993. The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents and Nuclear Weapons. Princeton University Press, Princeton
Scarman Centre. 2002. Managing Risk and Security, Module 2, Scarman Centre, Leicester
Schneider, S. 1995. Flirting with Disaster: Public Management in Crisis Situations. M.E. Sharpe
United Nations. 1992. Glossary: Internationally Agreed Glossary of Basic Terms Related to Disaster Management. UN International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction, Geneva.
United Nations. 2007. Disaster Risk Reduction: 2007. UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, Geneva.
University of Leicester 2004. Case Studies of Crises and Disasters, MSc in Risk, Crisis & Disaster Management
Waring, A. 1992. Primitive Culture. John Murray, London
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
0 comments:
Post a Comment