Collaborative Leadership in Multi-Level Emergency Management Networks

Collaborative governance has been crucial to emergency and crisis management due to the need to share resources and coordinate timely action. Yet cross-sector networks can pose new governance challenges of achieving both... [ view full abstract ]

Collaborative governance has been crucial to emergency and crisis management due to the need to share resources and coordinate timely action. Yet cross-sector networks can pose new governance challenges of achieving both organizational missions and collaborative goals. The networked environment requires public managers to understand network formation, attributes, and structures to facilitate organizational learning and improve organizational performance. The paper will address the network applications and management issues in the contexts of emergency and crisis management.
The following research questions will be examined: How does collaborative leadership influence interorganizational coordination and collaboration? What are the key leadership competencies are required for effective collaborative governance? How does collaborative leadership help organizations span institutional boundaries, mobilize resources to contribute to effective organizational involvement in multi-level network governance? What are the relationships between formal and informal leaderships in collaborative success?

Network leadership plays a crucial role in ensuring successful cross-sector collaborations. This paper builds an integrated research framework and applies social network analysis to investigate how network leadership, formal network structures, and informal networks interplay to influence cross-sector collaborations. This paper will, first, examines the key dimensions of network leadership and redefines attributes and responsibilities of network leadership within multilevel interorganizational networks. Next, this research investigates how informal networks of managers serve as boundary spanners to share information and best practices, and build norms for collective actions. It further examines how informal networks of managers may mediate the impact of formal governance structures on collaborations.

The paper will contribute in examining network leadership in the broad context of collaborative governance with considering factors related to processes and structures. Earlier studies have applied behavioral approach to network leadership and examined the essential network management activities. A social network approach may allow researchers to examine network leadership from new perspectives with relationship focus both formal and informal network leadership within multi, ego, organizational, and interorganizational levels.