Evidence for Practice

Institutional Collective Action Framework

Interdependent Risk Hypothesis

Independent Risk Hypothesis

Homophily Hypothesis

Background of the 2012 Typhoons in South Korea

Research Design and Methods

Model Specification

Results and Discussion

Stochastic Actor-Based Models

Conclusion

References

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to uncover the dynamic structure of an interorganizational emergency management network after a disaster. This research tests two hypothesized network structures: interdependent risk and independent risk. While the former illustrates the importance of trust and information redundancy in coordinating and aligning emergency preparedness and response, the latter captures the tendency for local actors to seek dominant partners to bridge crucial information across the region. A stochastic actor-based model with a forward selection strategy is used to analyze the structural effects of endogenous networks and the effects of exogenous community attributes on interorganizational ties. Based on the data sets collected before and after the 2012 typhoons in South Korea, the results support the interdependent risk hypothesis, suggesting that an interorganizational network structure tends to evolve into the notion of shared collaboration risk.

Institutional Collective Action Framework

The institutional collective action (ICA) framework posits that the transaction costs of monitoring and enforcing the contracted obligations for collaboration can prevent organizations from working together to achieve better outcomes (Feiock and Scholz 2010). The relative advantage analysis of transaction costs (e.g., information costs, negotiation costs, agency costs, and enforcement costs) provides insights into the obstacles preventing the realization of collective decisions (Feiock 2007; Inman and Rubinfeld 1997). Dilemmas between organizational and societal needs also arise from a system of fragmented authority (i.e., vertical, horizontal, and functional fragmentation), which become barriers to mutually beneficial action because they generate transaction costs at points at which organizations are considering agreements for joint activities. The ICA perspective extends the collective action theory, which is concerned with individuals’ behaviors and identifies problems associated with suboptimal outcomes at the organizational level. Despite the existence of an optimal outcome for society, each organizational behavior that seeks to maximize individual benefits may lead to the second-best outcome for society. The framework has also been utilized to study organizational behaviors using contract and transaction cost theories (Feiock 2009; Feiock and Scholz 2010). In the context of EM, the ICA framework has been applied to study interorganizational collaboration as interactions or interorganizational ties (Andrew and Carr 2013; Andrew et al. 2016; Andrew, Jung, and Li 2015). Such interactions can improve the level of emergency response, as they offer informal mechanisms for actors to reduce the cost of coordination and cooperation (Andrew et al. 2016). A beneficial exchange is realized when actors receive crucial resources from multiple actors.