Last night, Oscar, Ola, and I received the news that Riksbankens jubileumsfond will finance our project “Organizational routines in incident command centers: Improving society’s ability to handle extreme events“!!!
Please find the abstract below.
Abstract
The project investigates organizational routines in incident command through a comparative analysis of organizations critical to society’s response to extreme events. The purpose of the project is to develop a novel framework for understanding routines and their function as organizations switch to incident command. Further, the project aims to test this framework in the studied organizations. The project’s importance is partly identified by the organizations themselves and partly motivated by the increasing challenges of extreme events generally. Lastly, there is a clearly identified knowledge gap concerning routines in extreme contexts. In extension, the project’s aim is therefore to contribute to society’s resilience in tackling challenges such as climate change, increased migration and terrorism. Incident command work within the provincial- police, armed forces, Security services, and County administrative board (Västerbotten) is investigated through ethnographic methods covering both extreme events and preparation for these events. Each organization is studied by one member of the research team through interviews, observations and document studies. Through a unique cooperative effort in “Knowledge Forum Region North”, the organizations discuss the challenges of incident command with the research team. The knowledge forum also constitutes a test arena for practical application of the theoretical models provided by the researchers.
David and Markus paper on the Dark side of team behavior, with lessons from The Walking Dead was recognized by Financial times. FT wrote a long nice piece on the lessons that could be learned, after having spoken to Markus too. Later the piece was picked up by Irish Times. Funny enough Weltwoche also contacted us and wanted a piece, which we of course was happy to provide.
How will groups of survivors behave in a doomsday scenario? Will there be competition for scarce resources? Will they collaborate in reconstruction? We cannot research these questions directly, but we can find clues in four places. First, there are historical examples of apocalyptic events. Second, social identity theory offers explanations of group behavior. Third, there are studies of group dynamics in extreme contexts. We discuss the limitations of those three sources, prompting us to turn to a fictional account in search of ideas. Adopting a narrative theoretical lens, we consider ‘the theory on offer’ in the television series The Walking Dead, which portrays a zombie apocalypse. We find that group behavior is shaped by the nature of survivor group composition, and by the properties of the doomsday context they face. We demonstrate the potential for the emergence of a dark, violent side of group behavior. We illustrate a methodological solution to the problem of researching extreme contexts using ‘speculative fiction’. And we break new ground by exploiting the zombie movie genre, which addresses the ‘failure of imagination’ that can increase society’s vulnerability to unforeseen events. Our analysis has implications for organization theory, and for policy and practice in doomsday scenarios.
Today we had the pleasure of listening to Dr. Derin Kent, a postdoc at Aalto University. Derin spoke on some of his past research but quickly dug into the nitty-gritty details of temporal uncertainty, and how teams of storm chasers keep engaged with their situation. This work left important insights into how such temporal teams negotiate order and pace themselves in the highly uncertain world of chasing down tornadoes that can emerge pretty much at any time, anywhere in some parts of the US.
You are all invited to what will be a fascinating presentation by Doctor Derin Kent from Aalto University. Derin will be talking about his ethnography with storm chasers, and teamwork under uncertain conditions that epitome the adage of situations swinging between boredom to sheer terror. Derin will be visiting TripleEd during week 50.