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Resource sufficiency, organizational cohesion, and organizational effectiveness of emergency response

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O R I G I N A L P A P E R

Resource sufficiency, organizational cohesion,

and organizational effectiveness of emergency response

Chung-Fah Huang•Jieh-Jiuh WangTai-Jun Lin

Received: 11 May 2009 / Accepted: 28 October 2010 / Published online: 1 December 2010 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010

Abstract The main problem facing emergency managers during disasters are insufficient manpower and limited material resources. In emergency situations, the issue of inadequate resources arises from multiple emergency response teams who have different disaster perceptions, and end up allocating assets in an inefficient manner. These varying assess-ments are a result of erratic levels of involvement by the disaster management, which lead to the weakness of organizational cohesion. This study took Kaohsiung City in southern Taiwan as the subject and conducted a survey through questionnaires to explore the cor-relations among resource sufficiency, organizational cohesion, and organizational effec-tiveness in the emergency response. The questionnaires were then analyzed using descriptive statistics, factor analysis, reliability analysis and path analysis. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) Resource sufficiency should be the main priority for emergency response because of its direct correlation with organizational effectiveness, which in turn mediates the organizational cohesion; (2) Senior executives directly affect organizational cohesion and the organizational effectiveness; (3) Quality and quantity of the equipment and personnel have causal relationship with organizational effectiveness. Keywords Emergency response resource sufficiency Organizational cohesion  Organizational effectiveness Path analysis  Kaohsiung City

C.-F. Huang

Graduate School of Civil Engineering and Mitigating Technology of Disasters, National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences, Kaohsiung, Taiwan

e-mail: jeffrey@cc.kuas.edu.tw J.-J. Wang (&)

Department of Architecture, Ming Chuan University, 5 De-Ming Rd., Kuei-shang, Taoyuan County 333, Taiwan

e-mail: jjwang@mail.mcu.edu.tw T.-J. Lin

Graduate School of Civil Engineering and Mitigating Technology of Disasters, National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences, Kaohsiung, Taiwan

e-mail: carlos.1223@yahoo.com.tw DOI 10.1007/s11069-010-9662-y

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1 Introduction

The emergency management system (EMS) currently in operation is usually not composed of a single organization, and the multiplicity of emergency response-related organizations is characterized by barriers among first responders. The causes of these barriers include the following:

(1) Unspecific objectives of response. Every organization does what it thinks is right. (2) Role ambiguity. Each organization does not know their roles and responsibilities at

each stage.

(3) Bad communication and coordination. Organizations often fail to cooperate. (4) Misallocation of resources.

(5) Discrepancy between concept and objective, leading to conflict.

(6) Drastic competition between agencies in pursuit of demonstration of performance. (7) Sectionalism resulting from different specialties for different organizations (Walton

et al.1969).

As highlighted by Johnson et al. (2003), the uncertainty of the scale and location of disaster frequently leaves emergency response organizations unprepared. In the wake of the controversial issue of resource allocation, organizational cohesion is weakened, while the validity of organizational tasks is affected. Thus, there could be a significant correlation among resource sufficiency (RS), organizational cohesion (OC), and organizational effectiveness (OE).

The importance of resources to EMS has been commonly discussed, and its influences have been identified by previous research (Wallace and De Balogh1985; Lichterman2000; Smith2000; Donahue and Joyce2001; Thacher2005). In addition to the effect on internal organizational operations, resource insufficiency further impacts organizational perfor-mance. Only if reciprocal cooperation, close interaction and positive coordination are truly correlated can effectiveness be promoted in the actual operation of EMS. Therefore, organizational cohesion has significance to the system as well. However, in disaster research, there are very few studies that consider OC to be a major factor. Moreover, regardless of whether the enterprise is profit-seeking or governmental, the major focus of organizational research has been the performance of the organization, or OE. In recent years, governments have made extensive efforts in the areas of administrative innovation and organizational reconstruction, in order to develop higher management efficacy with limited resources. With governmental EMS, effectiveness will directly impact the safety of citizens’ lives and property. Thus, this study not only analyzed correlation among RS, OC and OE, but also modeled the impacts of RS, OC, and OE on emergency response via statistics approach such as path analysis. The results are offered as a reference for administrative innovation and resource expansion, to help upgrade the effectiveness of EMS.

After the enactment of Disaster Prevention and Rescue Act, EMS in Taiwan has been changed into a three-level system, which includes central government, local government and township, forming a unified command system by the central government. The key issues of disaster management works have been shifted to hazard mitigation and pre-paredness efforts from emergency response and recovery, such as to console and give monetary support to victims. The roles of local governments and townships are also turned to fully responsible for local emergency planning. Kaohsiung City, the middle-level in the three-middle-level disaster management system, was taken as an example in this study.

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2 Literature review 2.1 Emergency resources

During the planning process of EMS, professional planning staffs have shown concern over whether manpower and equipment supplied to EMS are sufficient to effectively cope with disasters and subsequent effects. Wallace and De Balogh (1985) also directly highlighted that resources should be a priority during preparedness and emergency response stages. Consequently, resources are closely related to the effectiveness of disaster management. However, authority and responsibility vary with emergency response teams in the system, and accordingly, their conceptions of resource are also often dissimilar. For this reason, this study first clarifies the meaning of resource.

Selznick (1957) deemed that every organization possesses different assets in terms of capability, resources, and organizational leadership. From the viewpoint of enterprise, Coyne (1986) showed that resources originate from four system parts: (1) function/busi-ness; (2) position; (3) cultural or organizational quality; and (4) regulatory framework. Function/business covers knowledge, technology, employee experiences, etc. Position is the environment created by past actions, organizational competitiveness, and prevention ability. Cultural or organizational quality originates from the conduct of individuals and groups in the organization and includes behavior, attitudes, beliefs, etc. Regulatory framework contains legal ownership and encompasses issues such as intellectual property rights. Barney (1991) stated that resources are helpful in organizational execution and are able to improve efficiency and effectiveness of assets. His study also concluded previous studies then pointed out that resources can be divided into three major categories: physical capital resources (Williamson 1975), human capital resources (Becker 1964), and orga-nizational capital resources (Tomer1987).

This study compiled and integrated definitions of resource in the aforementioned three categories and generalized the major subject matter of resources:

(1) Physical resources include assets, equipment, facilities, geographical sites, etc. (2) Human resources include training, competence, knowledge of employees, abilities of

managers, etc.

(3) Organizational resources include planning procedures, organizational control, organizational culture, organizational learning atmosphere, etc.

According to Johnson et al. (2003) and Wallace and De Balogh (1985), general disaster management resources contain accouterments, goods and materials, members of the organization, and budgeting. These are mostly encompassed by the idea of physical resources, while human resources and organizational resources are sometimes neglected. In terms of disaster management, ‘‘human resources’’ includes the education and training of emergency responders, science and technology of disaster management and leadership, etc., within the context of resources, knowledge, and information. Disaster management resources include the following: standard operating procedures relevant to disaster management, the leadership of the senior executives, the assigned mission, continuing learning of group members, etc. All of these influence the effec-tiveness of all phases of disaster management (mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery). As a result, the importance of human resources and organizational resources is obvious and paramount.

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2.2 Organizational cohesion

Cohesion can be regarded as one of the important attributes and has been frequently studied in combination with a variety of organizational archetypes. Many OC-related studies have spanned the domains of sociology, psychology, counseling and guidance, military psychol-ogy, organizational psycholpsychol-ogy, educational psycholpsychol-ogy, exercise and sport psycholpsychol-ogy, etc. (Carron and Brawley2000; Caruso et al.2006; Brockman and Morgan2006). Nevertheless, OC is a complex, multidimensional construct that has been defined and operated in a variety of ways. Thus, different studies have diverse interpretations of cohesion.

Carron (1982) defined cohesion as a dynamic process which is reflected in the tendency of a group to stick together in pursuit of its goals and objectives. As stated by Shaw (1981), cohesion has at least three different meanings associated with it, including the following: (1) attraction to the group, including resistance to leaving; (2) morale, or the level of motivation shown by group members, and (3) coordination of effort by group members. The research by Leunes and Nation (1989) also expressed the idea that a group of large size may have its cohesion loosened, while the number of members makes it difficult for group members to maintain contact with one another and initiate communication. Yalom (1995) defined group cohesiveness as the acceptance of members by the group and the self-awareness of an individual as a valuable member to the group—that is, the construction of relationships in the organization. Fatout and Rose (1995) defined cohesion as the conse-quence of participating in a group, which results in attraction to fulfill or expectation to achieve the task goals and the atmosphere that a group can offer its members as a satis-faction of fundamental needs. Michalisin et al. (2004) clearly stated that cohesion is ‘‘the degree to which members are attracted to their team and desire to remain in it.’’ In brief, this study defined organizational cohesion as:

(1) The strength of members’ desire to participate in the group, including the strength of members’ attraction to the group and reciprocal attraction among members. (2) The strength of members’ desire to remain in the group, i.e., subordination of

individual interest for group interest and members’ identification with the group. As shown in past studies, the factors affecting OC include the gathering of members, similarity of members, encouragement of cohesive members and reinforcement of lead-ership (Levine and Moreland 1990), interactions of member (Coleman et al.1991), and support and concern from the director (Gladstein1984). Also, strong OC enhances working relationships for the member and contributes more to the organization (Michalisin et al.

2004). Manning and Fullerton (1988) contended that merely gathering group members expedites the formation of OC, and the longer the time that members stay together, the more powerful the cohesion of the group will be. Nonetheless, OC mentioned in the foregoing studies would be affected by the contact that members have with one another. Gladstein (1984) also found out that OC can be promoted if the executives of the group give employees extra time for discussion and exchange of viewpoints or gives them more support and shows concern. In other words, in addition to other factors important for OC, generating organizational and OC is further facilitated by contact, common values and beliefs among members, and an open-minded and considerate leadership.

2.3 Organizational effectiveness

OE is the core of organizational theory and the most important dependent variable for organizational research (Edwards 1986). A desire to identify the causes of OE has

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dominated much of organization research, since its beginnings more than a century ago (e.g., Fayol1949; Taylor1911; Towne1886). Thus, the importance of OE is obvious in relevant research.

The narrow sense of effectiveness generally indicates the degree to which an objective is achieved; however, the broader one also confirms whether the organization can effectively operate. Even so, the interpretation of this concept varies with each particular study and has resulted in the extension of different effectiveness models. Nevertheless, based on sub-jective judgment, the researchers choose the appropriate definition and the measurement that are suitable for their OE research (Yukl1998). Literature showed many studies have made attempts to formally systematize OE criteria. The attempt to solve the effectiveness puzzle has generated tremendous creativity among scholars and practitioners (Biswas2010; Campbell1977; Likert1961; Quinn and Rohrbaugh1983; Taylor and Bowers1974; Zheng et al.2010). The most rigorous attempt was the effort to develop the Competing Values Framework (CVF) (Quinn and Rohrbaugh 1983), which was developed initially from research conducted on the major indicators of effective organizations. This framework helped reveal the polarities that exist across three dimensions: organizational structure (flexibility vs. control) (F/C), organizational focus (internal vs. external) (I/E), and means vs. ends (M/E). The idea was to understand whether, for a given organization, there was alignment among the polar tensions as they were being managed, and the values the organization nominally held. Based on statistical analyses of a comprehensive list of effectiveness indicators, Quinn and Rohrbaugh (1983) discovered two major dimensions underlying conceptions of effectiveness. Quinn (1988) indicated that F/C and I/E were sufficient to describe the effectiveness construct. The F/C dimension represents the way organizations deal with the internal components while simultaneously meeting external challenges of competition, adaptation, and growth. For example, the turbulent changes in the health care environment have triggered massive internal reorganization in many health care organizations in the United States. The I/E dimension represents how well the orga-nization manages the demands for changes in its environment, while simultaneously maintaining continuity. Thus, in responding to demands from the organization’s environ-ment, all structural changes must contribute to the organization’s ability to achieve its mission and to increase its effectiveness. Together the two dimensions form four quad-rants—Human Relations, Open Systems, Rational Goal, and Internal Process models (Quinn 1988).While the models seem to be four entirely different domains, they can be viewed as closely related and intertwined. There are four subdomains of the organizational and managerial effectiveness construct. The literature suggests that the content of these quadrants reflects the primary value-orientation of most organizations (Kalliath et al.1999). 2.4 Relationship between RS, OC, and OE

From the organization’s perspective, organizational resources actually include tangible and intangible assets, individual and organizational ability, and a variety of other organiza-tional elements. Especially with respect to intangible assets and organizaorganiza-tional and indi-vidual abilities, organizational resources not only include reputation, professional technology, culture, etc., of the organization, but also behavior, attitude, values, and interactive relationships among members. Studies relevant to OC (e.g., Coleman et al.

1991; Gladstein 1984) also stressed that organizational environment and culture would influence OC. These studies, therefore, derived a positive relationship between the RS for disaster management and OC. Additionally, regarding the correlation between the RS for disaster management and OC, both resources and rescue effectiveness are positively

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administration; however, with emphasis on organizational cohesion and organiza-tional effectiveness, they mention little about resource sufficiency. Resource Sufficiency, organizational cohesion, and organizational effectiveness were con-nected, and the hypothesized model was tested and revised using path analysis is the uniqueness of this study. The revised model explained 76.9% of the variance in the study.

(2) This study applied Factor Analysis to extract attributing factors of resource sufficiency that impact emergency management system. With high level of reliability, the resource sufficiency measurement tool indicates that this tool could be beneficial and used in future studies.

(3) Resource sufficiency should be the main priority for emergency response because of its direct correlation with organizational effectiveness, which in turn mediates the organizational cohesion.

(4) If senior executives would place higher priority on and pay more attention to disaster management projects and increase the resources, it could influence employees’ willingness to proactively access, learn relevant knowledge, and further promote organizational cohesion and enhance organizational effectiveness. By increasing senior executives’ participation and communication with all levels of emergency response, efficiency will increase, costs will lessen, and lives will be more effectively cared for.

(5) The quality and quantity of the equipment and personnel designated to relevant operations have causal relationship with organizational effectiveness.

The study population is the staff of emergency management system of Kaohsiung City Government. Future research is recommended to expand and extend to other geographic areas in order to replicate the model developed in this study. In addition, Quantitative studies in Emergency Management are relatively few when this study was conducted. There could be numerous potential factors that influence organizational effectiveness. Future research is recommended by testing other potential variables in order to perfect the study in the effectiveness of the disaster management.

Acknowledgments We wish to express our gratitude to EMS members who participated in this study and ‘‘2007 Kaohsiung City Reinforcement Disaster Prevention and Protection Plan’’ sponsored by Kaohsiung City Government.

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