THEORETICAL BACKGROUND:Inter-organisational collaboration enables solving local problems in more effective way and it increases the capacity to provide public services (Leung, 2013; Mora and Ţiclǎu, 2008; McGuire, 2006). It... [ view full abstract ]
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND:
Inter-organisational collaboration enables solving local problems in more effective way and it increases the capacity to provide public services (Leung, 2013; Mora and Ţiclǎu, 2008; McGuire, 2006). It is an important public management instrument, but it is also complex and difficult to implement and enterprises undertaken in this area often fail. Therefore, it is suggested to avoid collaboration if it is not necessary (Gulati et al., 2012; Huxham and Vangen, 2005). However, it is not possible to omit collaboration in the public safety management system, because the units of that system are obliged to enter into cooperative relationships through the applicable legal regulations and the division of competences and tasks.
RESEARCH AIM:
inter-organisational collaboration in the public safety management system contend with many problems and - as in other organizations - its effects are not always satisfying. This is the effect of a number of factors influencing common activities including the context (e.g. place, time and type of event), organisational and legal conditions (e.g. legal regulations, policies and strategies of individual organisations) and social (e.g. trust, engagement), and the scope and level of collabotarion between organizations. Additionally, the scope of research conducted in the field of public safety is modest (Tomasino, 2011; Strömgren and Andersson, 2010), and research on the effectiveness of inter-organisational collaboration in dynamic context are leading rarely (Kapucu, 2005; Dickinson and Sullivan, 2014). Therefore, there is a a research gap in the scope of analysis of inter-organizational collaboration in the public safety management system in the holistic context, and fulfil this gap is the aim of this article.
METHOD AND RESULTS:
Concluding in this paper is based on a analysis of the research carried out under the scientific project "Coordination, communication and trust as factors driving effective inter-organizational collaboration in the system of public safety management", implemented in 2014-2017. These analyses include the following research:
- Desk research including analysis of international literature.
- Free-form interviews conducted in 2013 with 15 junior and mid-level employees employed in police and fire brigade units as well as medical rescue points.
- Questionnaire research conducted in May 2015 among 480 units, which performed actions related to public safety.
- Structured direct interviews realised in June 2016 with 100 experts dealing with the problematic aspects of functioning in the public safety management system.
As a result of the research, the context of the inter-organisational collaboraton in the public safety management system was characterised, the level of this collaboration was assessed and its effects were identified.
Ko_uch_Sienkiewicz-Ma_yjurek_BUILDING_TRUST.pdf 