Further Information

Processes of technological innovation are often rationalised with the promise of improved efficiency. Support for collaboration, communication and coordination is no exception. However, the introduction of new technologies for collaboration are transformative and can change existing partnerships and relationships and power relations within them. This often happens in unexpected places or ways and in relation to complex organisational structures, cultural influences, and interests. In addition, when focusing only on the advantages of novel technologies, the problems they bring with them can easily be ignored.

Examples

Changing Roles: In an interview for the SecInCoRe project a responder describes how, when the Hazardous Area Response Team acquired the new communication and body safety technologies, their role in multi-agency response collaborations changed:

…we used to have to stand there waiting for the fire service to do all the rescue stuff and then bring [the victims] over to us and that would be it. So with the [new technology] it took us right to where the patient was, so we sort of walked past the firemen wearing our own breathing apparatuses. It’s a real game changer from the patient treatment [and] our relationship with our colleagues from the other agencies, as well, because we were on an equal footing which was good” (SecInCoRe: Senior HART liaison UK, 2015).

Mass Casualty Incidents: In a study of the project SOGRO (“Immediate rescue in a large-scale accident with mass casualties”) which brought together hardware and software engineers, social scientists and end-users (emergency physicians, paramedics, fire-fighters) to develop an integrated system for mass casualty incident (MCI) events, Ellebrecht and Kaufman (2013) found that the system transformed practices of triage and the power relations between the parties involved. Introducing decision support technology entailed three ambivalent consequences. Firstly, it allowed assigning new competencies to paramedics. Delegating these competencies was only possible because execution of the triage tasks could be pre-defined to the last detail and completely controlled. This technology provided new options for action but at the same time curtailed others. It redistributed responsibility to paramedics without allowing them skill or discretion. Aside from this, the novel possibilities of technological surveillance introduced a second instance of ambivalence. While rescue forces may gratefully employ them because they help with the concrete management of a mass casualty incident, they may also drive them towards undesired strategies of avoiding mistakes for fear of having ‘disobedience’ to the system’s suggestions logged. Moreover, any documented errors may unsettle the hitherto high public trust in the reliability of this organisation. Time savings and the acceleration of the rescue process thus become ambivalent as they come at the cost of new uncertainties about responders powers to exercise skill within the asymmetric power relations of a multi-agency response.

Resources

Boin, A., Rhinard, M., and Ekengren, M. (2014). Managing Transboundary Crisis: The Emergence of European Union Capacity. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 22(3), 131–142 [DOI]

Bossong, R., and Hegemann, H. (2015). Cooperation under Diversity? Exploring cultural and institutional diversity in European Civil Security Governance. In R. Bossong & H. Hegemann (Eds.), 2015 European Civil Security Governance, Diversity and Cooperation. London: Palgrave MacMillan.

Bowker, G., & Star, S. L. (1999). Sorting things out. International Classification. MIT Press Cambridge, MA.

Ellebrecht, N. and Kaufmann, S. (2014). Boosting Efficiency Through the Use Of IT?: Reconfiguring the Management of Mass Casualty Incidents in Germany. International Journal of Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (IJISCRAM) 6(4): 1-18. [DOI] [Link]

Van House, N.A., Butler, M.H., and Schiff, L. R. (1998). Cooperative Knowledge Work and Practices of Trust : Sharing Environmental Planning Data Sets. The ACM Conference On Computer Supported Cooperative Work, Seattle, WA November 14-18: 335–343. [DOI]