From High-Reliability Organizations to High-Reliability Networks: The Dynamics of Network Governance in the Face of Emergency

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Berthod, Olivier; Grothe-Hammer, Michael; Mueller-Seitz, Gordon; Raab, Joerg; Sydow, Joerg
• 署名单位: Free University of Berlin; University of Kaiserslautern; Tilburg University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION RESEARCH AND THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1053-1858
• DOI: 10.1093/jopart/muw050
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 352-371
• 关键词: INTERORGANIZATIONAL NETWORKS; management; ACCOUNTABILITY; leadership; complex; systems; CRISIS; work

摘要

Research has reported at length on how interorganizational networks can be effectively governed in public service delivery. In contrast, the way such networks specifically organize for reliability is strikingly absent from the literature. We substantiate the idea of High-Reliability Networks (or HRNs) by drawing from the literature on network governance and exploring networked emergency management in a large German city. Herein, we analyze an unprecedented dataset on a network's development, covering two years of interviews and direct observations. The article offers three contributions: first, we theorize high reliability at the network level and thereby extend the discussion on the governance and effectiveness of interorganizational networks. Second, we show that network governance in HRNs is of a hybrid nature and oscillates between assertive and supportive modes of governance, thereby contributing to a dynamic perspective on the governance of networks. Third, the article demonstrates how HRNs develop a capacity to prepare better for the unexpected by managing latent ties.