Capturing the citizen perspective in crisis management exercises: possibilities and challenges
Abstract
Purpose
Supporting and communicating with citizens is a vital part of societal crisis management. Training exercises may offer an opportunity to develop capabilities among managers in this regard. The purpose of this paper is to examine this potential in an analysis of how citizens were portrayed and perceived by participants in a major crisis management exercise.
Design/methodology/approach
Observation, document analysis and short interviews during the exercise were used as data collection methods. Data were subjected to thematic analysis to capture core themes in relation to the research aim.
Findings
Patterns in how citizens’ reactions were portrayed in the exercise were identified to form a citizen behaviour typology. Observations during the exercise also demonstrated some of the challenges in incorporating the citizen perspective. However, findings regarding the perception of the citizen perspective also demonstrate the ability of exercise participants to meet and respond to public behaviours with respect and seriousness.
Originality/value
Variation is an important condition for learning in exercises, and the identified typology is suggested as a starting point for achieving this in incorporation of the citizen perspective in training scenarios. The results of the study are discussed in terms of a learning framework with the aim of explicitly developing crisis managers’ ability to interact and communicate with citizens in crisis situations.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The study reported here is part of a research project funded by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency.
Citation
Scott, D., Brandow, C., Hobbins, J., Nilsson, S. and Enander, A. (2015), "Capturing the citizen perspective in crisis management exercises: possibilities and challenges", International Journal of Emergency Services, Vol. 4 No. 1, pp. 86-102. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJES-12-2014-0024
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2015, Emerald Group Publishing Limited