Meetings as an Arena for Coordination in Crisis: The County Governor’s Contingency Coordination through the County Emergency Council in Norway

Catharina Bjørkquist (), Gunnar Vold Hansen and Helge Ramsdal
Additional contact information
Catharina Bjørkquist: Department of Welfare, Management and Organisation, Østfold University College, 1557 Halden, Norway
Gunnar Vold Hansen: Department of Welfare, Management and Organisation, Østfold University College, 1557 Halden, Norway
Helge Ramsdal: Department of Welfare, Management and Organisation, Østfold University College, 1557 Halden, Norway

Administrative Sciences, 2022, vol. 12, issue 4, 1-15

Abstract: This article aims to study how Norwegian county governors (CGs) performed their coordination tasks shortly after the lockdown in March by emphasizing the use of the County Emergency Council (CEC) as a meeting arena for coordination in times of crisis management more generally and the challenges the CGs had to face in this particular situation. We ask (1) what kind of meeting arena is the CEC and (2) how does the CEC as a meeting arena facilitate coordination at this level of government? In order to analyze the dynamics of the CEC meetings, we will refer to two theoretical approaches, i.e., meetings science and coordination. The present study is based upon an exploratory research strategy to analyze how the CGs responded to the challenges and performed coordination through the CEC. We found that the CEC meetings could be seen as hybrids of organization, institution and network, and even a network of networks, where several CG offices established thematic networks. These smaller networks have the advantage of establishing personal relationships more easily than the larger networks; however, they may lack the comprehensive overview that is necessary in a crisis that cuts across sectors.

Keywords: contingency coordination; county governor; meetings; organization; institution; networks; network of networks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L M M0 M1 M10 M11 M12 M14 M15 M16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3387/12/4/154/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3387/12/4/154/ (text/html)

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:gam:jadmsc:v:12:y:2022:i:4:p:154-:d:961135

Access Statistics for this article

Administrative Sciences is currently edited by Ms. Nancy Ma

More articles in Administrative Sciences from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().