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Björn J E Johansson. (2020). Boundary Stories – A Systems Perspective on Inter-organizational Learning from Crisis Response Exercises. In Amanda Hughes, Fiona McNeill, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2020 Conference Proceedings – 17th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 427–434). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: Inter-organizational exercises are commonly conducted with the aim to improve overall crisis response system performance. However, there are challenges associated with establishing learning goals for, designing and evaluating inter-organizational exercises. This work-in-progress paper applies a systems science perspective on the Swedish crisis response system with the aim to understand (1) what kind of a system it is (2) what properties or mechanisms enable good system performance?, and, (3) what are desirable training goals for improving the crisis response capability of the Swedish crisis response system? The author suggests that (1) the Swedish crisis response system can be seen as a Complex Adaptive System, and (2) that the focus must shift from exercising organizations' intra-organizational capabilities to adaptive capabilities. The latter can be achieved by designing exercises comprising boundary-crossing activities with the purpose to support the buildup of boundary-crossing competence. Cross-organizational learning can be achieved by identifying, documenting and disseminating boundary stories.
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Briony Gray, & Matthew Colling. (2021). Understanding Interoperability in Humanitarian Aid Organizations. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 439–447). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: Quality and timely knowledge is critical to effective humanitarian operations during crises. Despite this, there remain limitations to its capture, exchange and understanding both in the inter and intra agency settings. To improve this, methods like interoperability should be improved within humanitarian aid organizations and their wider networks. Learning from the experiences and insights of domestic and international delegates of the Canadian Red Cross, this paper highlights that the biggest added values of interoperability to the intra-agency setting are (i.) increasing organizational capacity, expertise and reputation, (ii.) better tools, processes and leveraging valuable knowledge, and (iii.) improved engagement of volunteers, employees and delegates. The most prevalent barriers are (i.) workplace culture, (ii.) differences in operations, context and communications and (iii.) the socio-technical barriers of systems, processes and integration. The paper concludes by presenting lessons for humanitarian organizations to improve interoperability, supporting resilient responses for future crisis management.
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David Wodak, & Kenny Meesters. (2021). How To Improve HO/TO's: An Exploratory Study on The Alignment Between Information, Technology And Crisis teams. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 459–470). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: In the last decade, the number of crises has increased, and have become more complex. Crisis response does not only focus on rescue operations, or separate stages but rather it is an integrated and continuous process. During this continuous process, several handovers take place. A handover is an important, critical but challenging moment during a crisis, due to the organizational factors that influence the handover and the technology used to transfer information. Since these are crucial elements of a Crisis handover, it would indicate that the alignment between these factors could lead to the improvement of Crisis handovers. However, certain barriers resulted in a lack of alignment. An important barrier originates from the organizational processes. These have a lack of focus on which crisis managers are involved in the handover and thus create a lack of alignment between the systems and information used by various crisis teams.
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Hussain A. Syed, Marén Schorch, & Volkmar Pipek. (2020). Disaster Learning Aid: A Chatbot Centric Approach for Improved Organizational Disaster Resilience. In Amanda Hughes, Fiona McNeill, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2020 Conference Proceedings – 17th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 448–457). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: The increasingly frequent occurrence of organizational crises exemplifies the need to strengthen organizational resilience. An example of business organizations is small and medium enterprises (SMEs) which contribute largely to the economic growth. But often, their limited resources (manpower, time, financial capital), organizational structure, focus on operational routines and less priority towards disaster resilience make them more vulnerable to crisis than bigger companies. The proposed solution addresses this dilemma by establishing a collaborative medium within the organization to improve disaster resilience by raising awareness and self-learning in employees without overburdening their constrained routines and resources. Our work in progress demonstrates a conceptual model of a learning aid (collaboration channel and a chatbot) that supports the pedagogical methodologies and employs them for enhancing learnability and awareness and elaborates the usability of interactive learning instilling disaster resilience in employees and hence in an organization.
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Kenny Meesters, & Thijs van Beek. (2021). Towards a tailor-made modelling language for information flow setups in humanitarian crisis management. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 448–458). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: Over the years many different strategies, approaches and tools have been used in emergency response to connect information flows. In large-scale emergencies different tools, processes and structures are used to coordinate information. This is in part due to the differences in countries, emergencies, and local context, but also personal preferences, capabilities and resources play a role. Despite these differences, being able to compare and contrast various information structures, processes and systems would be beneficial to identify recurring structures and their performance. Modelling languages have been used in many other contexts to support these practices of describing, analyzing and comparing processes. This research examines the need and potential of a tailored modelling language to visualize information flow setups. In this study an initial set of requirements is developed from a literature study and further validated with expert in-depth interview. These requirements are compared with existing modelling languages to identify key building blocks of the language. The results provide key considerations for the development of a new modelling language to describe information flows in a consistent and structured manner.
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Mari Olsén, Niklas Hallberg, Per-Anders Oskarsson, & Magdalena Granåsen. (2020). Exploring Capabilities that Constitute Inter-Organizational Crisis Management. In Amanda Hughes, Fiona McNeill, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2020 Conference Proceedings – 17th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 417–426). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: Crises are infrequent, unpredictable and complex events. Managing such events requires well-prepared and well-coordinated efforts by several response organizations. Hence, a sufficient inter-organizational crisis management (ICM) capability is critical for sustainable societies. To ensure the ICM capability, approaches for enhancing and evaluating it are needed. The objective of this study was to identify and elaborate a clearly defined set of capabilities that constitutes ICM capability. The study was performed by an explorative literature study, where identified capabilities related to ICM were clustered. The cluster of capabilities was iteratively evaluated and refined. The study resulted in 14 capabilities that constitute ICM capability, which were divided into core, supportive, and enabling capabilities. The set of capabilities may provide a foundation for a framework of ICM capability with the ability to support assessment of ICM performance both in exercises and in real ICM operations, as well as in the design of ICM exercises.
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Per-Anders Oskarsson, Magdalena Granåsen, Niklas Hallberg, & Mari Olsén. (2020). Modeling of Crisis Management Systems: Results of a Systematic Literature Review. In Amanda Hughes, Fiona McNeill, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2020 Conference Proceedings – 17th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 435–447). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: Models are important means to represent, explore, evaluate, and develop systems, such as interorganizational crisis management (ICM) systems. The objective was to explore how ICM systems are represented in the scientific literature, i.e., how ICM systems are modelled. The study was carried out as a systematic literature review. The results are presented as (1) organizational descriptions or models of ICM systems, (2) functional components of ICM systems, (3) analytical approaches used to model ICM systems, and (4) changes of ICM systems. The results revealed that ICM systems are described in various ways, and that descriptions of models are rather based on entities developed by the authors of the publications than on a common framework for describing ICM systems. The identified information on models, functional components, analytical approaches, and changes of the ICM systems provide important input to future work, e.g. comparing different models to determine their strengths and weaknesses.
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Sofie Pilemalm, Jaziar Radianti, Bjørn Erik Munkvold, Tim A. Majchrzak, & Kristine Steen-Tveit. (2021). Turning Common Operational Picture Data into Double-loop Learning from Crises – can Vision Meet Reality? In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 417–430). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: This study proposes a framework for double-loop learning from crises, using common operational pictures (COP). In most crises, a COP is of outmost importance to gain a common understanding among inter-organizational response. A COP is typically expressed through a map visualization. While the technologies to support COP progress rapidly, the corresponding practice of evaluating the COP and situational awareness is not yet established. Tools that enable responders to learn after the crisis, look back in time on the COP devel-opment and detect the barriers that prevent the COP establishment, still seem absent. Double-loop learning is an organizational practice to learn from previous actions widely adopted in the safety domain, and lately used in crisis management. This paper addresses the perceived gap by presenting the technical, organizational and structural requirements derived from document analysis, observation, and a workshop with multiple crisis management stakeholders, and integrating them to an initial framework.
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Yitong Li, Duoduo Liao, Jundong Li, & Wenying Ji. (2021). Automated Generation of Disaster Response Networks through Information Extraction. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 431–438). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: Following a disaster, maintaining and restoring community lifelines require collective efforts from various stakeholders. Aiming at reducing the efforts associated with generating stakeholder collaboration networks (SCNs), this research proposes a systematic approach for reliably extracting stakeholder collaboration information from texts and automatically generating SCNs. In the proposed approach, stakeholders and their interactions are automatically extracted from texts through a natural language processing technique--Named Entity Recognition. Once extracted, the collaboration information is stored into structured datasets to automate the generation of SCNs. A case study on stakeholder collaboration in response to Hurricane Harvey is used to demonstrate the feasibility and applicability of the proposed approach. Overall, the proposed approach achieves the reliable and automated generation of SCNs from texts, which largely reduces practitioners' interpretation loads and eases the data collection process.
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