Policy-driven Reliability? A US-German Comparison of High-Reliability Networks in Emergency Management

疾病暴发或飞机和火车坠毁救援行动等意外紧急情况重新引发了人们的兴趣，不仅是个人，还有组织，有时甚至整个社会实际上都面临着这样的危机。对于管理和组织研究人员来说，这提出了一个至关重要的问题：组织如何面对他们没有准备好的挑战？在管理学研究中，对高可靠性组织(HRO)的研究突出地表现在组织如何准备和处理危机情况。虽然人力资源管理理论促进了我们对人力资源管理的理解，但我们认为，对人力资源管理的研究需要从两个重要方面加以完善。首先，到目前为止，人力资源组织的研究主要集中在单个组织上。然而，正如大规模紧急情况所表明的那样，经常需要人权组织之间的合作。因此，拟议的项目提出了“从人力资源组织到人力资源网络？”从标题开始；指出了协调人权关系的广泛可能选择，其中甚至可能至少包括在某些情况下形成组织间高可靠性网络(HRN)。因此，拟议项目的第一个目标是探讨在面临重大紧急情况时人权组织可能的星座范围。这里的重点是正式治理的形式，包括不同形式的网络治理。第二个目标是制定一个以实践为基础的框架，以结构化理论为基础，考虑到人权组织/人权网络的特点和背景。我们特别侧重于行动者在组织中参与的实际协调做法，目的是在极端不确定的环境中证实关于网络起源和发展的研究。为了实现这些目标，我们正在申请一个为期两年的项目，深入研究杜塞尔多夫市的消防和紧急服务，包括他们广泛的合作伙伴网络；考虑到这些服务在一般民事安全方面的作用，以及在这一具体情况下作为大规模灾难的网络组织者，这是一个适当的环境。将采用多种方法：首先，通过内容分析和社会网络分析，对过去至少12起突发事件进行回顾、深入和比较分析，这将有助于探索不同的人力资源组织集群和治理形式。第二，通过一项为期12个月的人种志实时收集人力资源网络突发事件的数据，将有助于将组织和组织间的做法理论化，从而超越(网络)治理的形式。

Unexpected emergencies like disease outbreaks or plane and train crash relief operations result in a renewed interest in how not only individuals, but also organizations and sometimes even whole societies actually face such crises. For management and organizational researchers, this raises a crucial question: how can organizations face challenges that they have not been prepared for? In management research, studies on High Reliability Organizations (HRO) feature prominently and focus upon how organizations prepare for and deal with crisis situations. Although HRO theory has advanced our understanding, we argue that research on HRO needs to be refined in two important ways. First, HRO studies have so far focused on single organizations. However, as large-scale emergencies illustrate, collaboration among HROs is frequently needed. Hence the proposed project asks "From HRO to HRN?" from its title onwards; pointing towards the broad spectrum of potential options for coordinating HROs, which may even include, in some cases at least, the formation of inter-organizational High Reliability Networks (HRN). Therefore, the first objective of the proposed project is to explore the range of possible constellations of HROs in the face of significant emergencies. The focus here is on forms of formal governance, including different forms of network governance. The second objective is to develop a practice-based framework informed by structuration theory that would take into account the peculiarities and contextualities of HROs/HRNs. Focusing in particular upon the actual coordinative practices in which actors engage across organizations, we aim at substantiating research on network genesis and development in settings with extreme uncertainties. To meet these objectives, we are applying for a two-year project researching in depth the Fire and Emergency Services of the City of Düsseldorf, including their wide network of partners; an adequate setting given the role of these services in civil safety in general and in this specific case as a network organizer for large-scale disaster. Multiple methods will be employed: first, retrospective in-depth and comparative analyses of at least 12 past emergencies by employing content and social network analyses will help to explore different HRO constellations and governance forms. Second, real-time data collection from the emergencies of an HRN by means of a 12-month ethnography will help to go beyond the forms of (network) governance by theorizing organizational and inter-organizational practices.