Social Connectedness and Adaptive Team Coordination During Fire Events

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BushfireTopic: 
Community Safety
Risk Management
Project Reference: 
Effective Incident Management Organising
TitleSocial Connectedness and Adaptive Team Coordination During Fire Events
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2013
AuthorsAbbasi, A, Owen, C, Hossain, L, Hamra, J
JournalFire Safety Journal
Volume59
Start Page30
Pagination30-36
Date Published07/2013
KeywordsCoordination quality, Disaster management, Incident management team, Participants adaptive behavior, Team connectedness
AbstractPreparing for fire-related emergencies and consequence management is considered to be dynamic and challenging in managing crises, preventing losses, and in the allocation of resources. In this study, we argue that improving plans and operations of personnel involved in managing fire-related emergencies is an important area of investigation. Here, we investigate the effects of social connectedness among different team members to manage bushfires. We further analyze response coordination by exploring variables such as participants' preparedness quality, quality of incident action planning, and quality of accessibility of resources. In doing so, we also test the effects of these variables on improved adaptive behavior. Our results show high positive correlation between social connectedness for team members and coordination quality and also adaptive behavior. We also found significant relationship between coordination and adaptive behavior. Applying regression analyses, the results indicate positive significant effect of social connectedness on coordination and adaptive behavior and also the effect of coordination on adaptive behavior. By exploring the proposed model, we are able to develop a better understanding of the factors that support adaptive behavior in incident management teams responding to bushfire events.
URLhttp://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0379711213000751
DOI10.1016/j.firesaf.2013.03.016