Developing Collaboration in Complex Events: A Model for Civil-Military Inter-Organizational Problem-Solving and Decision-Making

摘要

Stewardship of complex extreme events requires effective civil- military collaboration. This paper examines the organizational roles and pre- conditions for this collaboration. Firstly, a review of the relevant interdisciplinary literatures identifies various models of problem-solving and decision-making across the range of organizations involved in major events. Secondly, findings from a series of Canadian and international extreme events involving civil-military interaction are examined to identify situational characteristics and features of inter-organizational relationships across an extended event timeline. Finally, a framework for understanding inter- organizational problem-solving and decision-making is presented. Two interrelated components drive the process: situational complexity and approach to problem-solving. The relationship between these components is modified according to problem-solving stage, and various assets such as power, resources and information. Three elements identified as contributing to situational complexity include impact, uncertainty and vulnerability. These elements interact to determine whether the situation is categorized as simple, complicated or complex. Problem-solving is characterized in time as a recursive six-stage process including problem identification, problem definition, solution generation, decision-making, solution implementation and feedback. Three main approaches to inter-organizational problem-solving are described as coordination, cooperation and collaboration. Methods involving the development of an experimental environment for in vivo simulation to test the inter- organizational problem-solving model are described.