Cultural Influence on the Implementation of Incident Command System for Emergency Management of Natural Disasters

Tsai Jiin-Song and Chi Cheryl S.F.
Additional contact information
Tsai Jiin-Song: National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan, R.O.C.
Chi Cheryl S.F.: Tsinghua University, China (corresponding author)

Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, 2012, vol. 9, issue 1, 24

Abstract: The emergency response to and management of natural disasters has become a special challenge and indispensable capability for all governments. Those who need to step into the breach at a moment’s notice must be able to manage conflicts arising from numerous concurrent tasks, clashes over jurisdictional differences, and disputes over various inextricable matters. This paper examines some unsuccessful cases of emergency management in Taiwan, Japan, and the United States. Their employment of the American Incident Command System (ICS) for quick-response actions is examined through the lens of culture theory. A simple framework is developed to illustrate the link between (1) Hofstede’s cultural dimensions (power distance, individualism versus collectivism, femininity versus masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term versus short-term orientation), (2) conflict management styles (collaborating, dominating, compromising, avoiding, and accommodating approaches), and (3) organizational cultures (pyramid, family, machine, and market). This framework consolidates the extant research on the applicability of culture typology to understand the effects of cultural distance on adopting emergency strategies and actions originally developed in a foreign country. This study attempts to explain how different cultural orientations uniquely influence how people handle emergency disasters and why directly implanting foreign approaches (i.e., practices, procedures, and organizations) is not always the best solution for resolving the issues besetting their emergency systems.

Keywords: disaster; emergency management; culture; cultural distance; conflict management style (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1515/1547-7355.1970 (text/html)
For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:johsem:v:9:y:2012:i:1:p:24:n:21

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/jhsem/html

DOI: 10.1515/1547-7355.1970

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management is currently edited by Irmak Renda-Tanali

More articles in Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().