Transforming Crisis Management: Field Studies on the Efforts to Migrate from System-Centric to Network-Centric Operations

Authors:
Nitesh Bharosa;Bart Zanten;Marijn Janssen;Martijn Groenleer
Affiliations:
Delft University of Technology, Delft, the Netherlands 2628;Delft University of Technology, Delft, the Netherlands 2628;Delft University of Technology, Delft, the Netherlands 2628;Delft University of Technology, Delft, the Netherlands 2628
Venue:
EGOV '09 Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Electronic Government
Year:
2009

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Abstract

Governments are searching for ways to improve information sharing between autonomous agencies. During crises, information demand and supply are often unbalanced, leading to situations in which relief workers are faced with incorrect, outdated or incomplete information. To address such challenges, network-centric operations (NCO), which involves information sharing with the socio-technical network as the central enabling mechanism, has been proposed. Yet, NCO is ill-understood and it is unclear whether the promised benefits can be realized in practice. In this paper we address the gap between the concept and reality of NCO. The necessary capabilities for NCO are identified using literature research and potential benefits are analyzed using field research. We found that NCO is not a silver bullet for overcoming the inherent problems of crisis management and could even reinforce existing problems. Our findings suggest that NCO is difficult to implement and needs to be complemented with capability development in the information and cognitive domain.