Title: Inter-institutional relationships and emergency management

Authors: Fred Phillips

Addresses: IC² Institute, University of Texas, Austin, USA; Marshall Goldsmith School of Management, Alliant International University, 10455 Pomerado Road, San Diego, CA 92131, USA

Abstract: |Public disasters|, from the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill to the 2008 US mortgage meltdown, involved many agencies and institutions, and present new challenges for the design of networks of institutions. In improved networks of institutions: the fox must not guard the henhouse; accountability will be enhanced rather than clouded; remediation is quick, with blame assigned later. This paper highlights the need for, and sketches an outline of, a new field of high-performance inter-organisational interaction (|HPII|). It extends Linstone|s |Multiple perspectives| (MP) approach, and maps the dimensions of HPII against the extended MP schema. Examples drawn from recent disasters fill out the discussion, and research directions are outlined.

Keywords: corporate social responsibility; CSR; business-government relationships; disaster management; emergency management; crisis management; inter-sectoral relations; inter-institutional relationships; public disasters; Exxon Valdez; tankers; Exxon Mobil; oil spills; Prince William Sound; Alaska; USA; United States; financial meltdowns; sub-prime mortgages; financial crises; network design; accountability; inter-organisational interaction; high-performance interaction; multiple perspectives; Harold Linstone; Deutsche Bank; New York; World Trade Center; 911 attacks; terrorists; terrorism; insurance; skyscrapers; society; systems science; assessment methods; social systems.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSSS.2011.038932

International Journal of Society Systems Science, 2011 Vol.3 No.1/2, pp.40 - 57

Published online: 27 Feb 2015 *

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