Suchergebnisse

Research and anecdotal evidence suggest employee levels of organizational commitment have declined in public and private sectors. The important role of commitment in government recruitment and retention reinforces the need to maintain employee commitment. The literature is conflicted regarding the extent to which trust in supervisors can facilitate commitment. One public and one private organization were studied. Although trust and commitment were not closely related in a direct statistical sense, trust in supervisors has an important role to play in promoting organizational commitment. Employee attitudes toward layoffs and reorganizations were highly predictive of organizational commitment. Credibility, decision participation, empowerment, and feedback were significant predictors of supervisor trust. A trusted supervisor can provide meaningful interpretations of organizational intent and reassurance that the desirable value structure of the organization will be sustained.

It has long been argued in the research literature that conducting disaster exercises produces a variety of benefits that promote effective emergency management. In spite of nearly universal acceptance of the claim, there are few empirical studies that have explored the effects of exercises on participants. This paper reviews the role of exercises in the creation of community disaster preparedness, while making explicit the links among planning, training and exercising. Using a quasi‐experimental design, the effects of disaster exercise participation on perceptions of response knowledge and teamwork are studied for police officers, fire‐fighters and civilian volunteers. The exercise studied involved an annual airport disaster drill required for continuing certification. It was found that participation enhanced the perceptions of response knowledge and teamwork for all three types of participants.

Particularly since the 11 September terrorist attacks in the USA, much attention has been given to the development and implementation of incident management systems (IMS). The IMS is a tool for marshalling pre‐identified and pre‐assembled resources to respond to an emergency or disaster. IMS is particularly useful when personnel and resources from many agencies and jurisdictions are required to manage large incidents successfully. While many IMS have been devised over the years, their use remains intermittent. This paper traces the evolution of IMS, reviews how it can be integrated into jurisdictional emergency and disaster management, and specifies the structures that are used in most incident management systems at the municipal level.

In the USA, terrorist threats captured government attention following 11 September 2001. Cities remain the most likely setting for terrorist incidents. Many cities, building on a successful federal program begun in 1997, have developed metropolitan medical response systems (MMRS) to address the consequences of terrorist incidents. The basic system design has been tested both through drills and incidents – including the attacks on the World Trade Center – and appears to function well. This paper describes the philosophy and elements of the MMRS model. The model has considerable value as a readily exportable strategy for responding to municipal terrorist incidents.

Addresses the issue of the structure and function of the community emergency operations centre (EOC). There is some confusion among some emergency responders and particularly among public officials regarding the role and function of the EOC. In part this emerges because many EOCs at different levels operate in conjunction with any given disaster. It is argued that the community EOC is best seen as an over‐arching organization into which information from more specialized EOCs – such as those operated by fire and police departments – flows, and from which the overall response to the disaster is directed. There is also a tendency to define the functions of the community EOC narrowly. Such definitions typically understate the importance of such activities as damage assessment and public information, and consequently leave the responsibility for these and related critical functions somewhat ambiguous. Seeks to achieve an explicit definition of the range and content of disaster responsibilities associated with the community EOC and thereby to clarify and contribute more to effective community‐wide disaster response.