Abstract

Purpose – Twenty-first century crises reaffirm the need of faster mobilization of resources during crises.Without interorganizational collaboration and resource mobilization, organizing efficient response is notpossible. Resource mobilization is an essential aspect of response. It ensures a faster and better response.Collaboration between teams of emergency responders may include commonly known boundary spanningactivities such as resource sharing, information sharing and communication. The purpose of this paper is tocontribute our knowledge of how to organize a better crisis response through collaboration. More precisely,what strategies work as drivers for emergency responder teams during collaboration in crisis scenarios.

Design/methodology/approach – Through design of experiments, using tabletop exercises and onlinesurveys, this study investigates the drivers of collaboration during a crisis scenario. Participants of this studyare decision makers and emergency responders from various public actors in crisis management from Sweden.

Findings – Collaboration is essential to manage cross-functional services in normal times, as well as meet thegrowing needs during crises. In absence of collaboration, boundary spanning activities such as sharingresources or information to provide any kind of service will not be possible. For teams to survive in fastchangingenvironment, they must be able to adapt to the changing demands accordingly. This paperdemonstrates which factors are drivers for emergency responders to mobilize resources, especially duringcrises. It captures the tension between individual and collective goals in crisis response and highlights thedrivers that affect decision-making during crises.

Originality/value – The novelty of the paper lies in its methodology using tabletop exercises, design ofexperiments as part of Six Sigma toolbox and online surveys in combination with weightage of agreements anddisagreements and free text answers. Although scientific research so far has demonstrated the need forcollaboration during crises, however, which factors act as drivers for emergency responders to collaborate, islacking scientific evidence. Incentives for collaboration have not been studied enough. These can tell us whichstrategies can improve collaboration during crises. This research paper is a scientific contribution in thatdirection.