See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/48327974

Managing Transboundary Crises: Identifying the Building Blocks of an

Effective Response System

Article  in  Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management · December 2010

DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-5973.2010.00620.x · Source: OAI

CITATIONS READS

308 2,261

3 authors:

Chris Ansell Arjen Boin

University of California, Berkeley Leiden University
81 PUBLICATIONS   7,945 CITATIONS    171 PUBLICATIONS   6,503 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Ann Keller
University of California, Berkeley
13 PUBLICATIONS   429 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

State-building View project

Transboundary Crisis Management View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Arjen Boin on 06 December 2017.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management Volume 18 Number 4 December 2010

Managing Transboundary Crises:

Identifying the Building Blocks of
an Effective Response System
Chris Ansell,* Arjen Boin**,*** and Ann Keller****
*Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 1950. Email:
cansell@berkeley.edu
**School of Governance, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
***Public Administration Institute, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA. E-mail: a.boin@uu.nl
****School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 7360. Email: annk@berkeley.edu

In recent years, crises have become increasingly transboundary in nature. This explora-
tory paper investigates whether and how the transboundary dimensions of crises such as
pandemics, cyber attacks and prolonged critical infrastructure failure accentuate the
challenges that public and private authorities confront in the face of urgent threats. We
explore the transboundary dimensions of crises and disasters, discuss how an increase in
‘transboundedness’ affects traditional crisis management challenges and investigate what
administrative mechanisms are needed to deal with these compounded challenges.
Building on lessons learned from past crises and disasters, our goal is to stimulate a
discussion among crisis management scholars about the political-administrative capabil-
ities required to deal with ‘transboundary’ crises.

1. Introduction: the rise of Rosenthal, Charles, & ’t Hart, 1989). These challenges,
transboundary crises we argue, become harder to manage when a crisis
spreads across geographical borders and policy bound-

I n recent years, crises and disasters have become

increasingly transboundary in nature. A series of con-
tingencies – think of the Y2K threat, the 9/11 attacks
and transport bombings in Europe, the BSE, SARS and
H1N1 epidemics, large-scale natural disasters such as
Hurricane Katrina and the California wildfires, the Ash
crisis and the BP oil spill – have confronted national
governments around the globe with a set of specific
challenges. Whether we talk about epidemics, energy
blackouts, financial crises, ice storms, oil spills or cyber
terrorism – the characteristics of these crises are strik-
ingly similar: they affect multiple jurisdictions, undermine
the functioning of various policy sectors and critical
infrastructures, escalate rapidly and morph along the way.
All crises and disasters typically require a rapid
response, which must be delivered under conditions
of collective stress and deep uncertainty (Barton, 1969;
aries. When this happens, more participants become
involved. These participants tend to be more dispersed,
have more divergent agendas and are less well ac-
quainted with each other.
This poses both notable management challenges as
well as an analytical challenge. On the management side,
dispersed participants must rapidly share information
and coordinate their actions across the boundaries
between organizations, professions and political juris-
dictions. Analytically speaking, we do not understand
very well the kinds of organizational factors that will
produce reliable performance across a network of
actors. Although the literature tells us a good deal
about how to foster reliable performance in single
organizations, we know much less about how to do
this when organizations are uncertain about who their
partners in a crisis might be.

& 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-5973.2010.00620.x

196
This paper investigates the under-researched man-
agement demands that stem from transboundary crises.
Building on theoretical insights and empirical findings in
political science, public administration, organization
theory, systems studies, public health studies, disaster
sociology and crisis management studies, our goal is to
highlight the crucial challenges associated with managing
transboundary crises and identify research questions
associated with these challenges. Our approach is
synthetic and our goal is theory building rather than
theory testing.
We begin by outlining the transboundary dimensions
of crises and disasters. We then discuss how an
increase in these dimensions affects the political-
administrative challenges posed by crises (Section 2).
In Section 3, we define and describe four core organi-
zational capacities that appear to be critical for meeting
these ‘transboundary challenges’. We study the litera-
ture to see whether it is realistic to expect these
capacities in our public response networks. We end
with a research agenda, identifying urgent research
needs and outlining gaps in the literature.
2. Defining transboundary crisis:
characteristics and trends
2.1. The transboundary dimensions of crisis
We speak of crisis when a threat is perceived against
the core values or life-sustaining functions of a social
system, which requires urgent remedial action under
conditions of deep uncertainty (Rosenthal et al., 1989).
Crises are ‘inconceivable threats come true’ – they tax
our imagination and outstrip available resources. Policy-
makers typically experience crises as ‘rude surprises’
that defy conventional administrative or policy responses,
causing collective and individual stress (LaPorte, 2007; cf.
Barton, 1969; Dror, 1986; Janis, 1989).
Crises differ from complex emergencies (hostage
takings, explosions, fires) that occur with some regularity
and, therefore, provide operational agencies enough past
experience to prepare for future events. In a crisis, past
experience provides policymakers with little guidance.
Policymakers, under these circumstances, face impossi-
ble-choice dimensions: everybody looks at them to ‘do
something’, but it is far from clear what that ‘something’ is
or whether it is even possible without causing additional
harm or damage (Boin, ’t Hart, Stern, & Sundelius, 2005).
Crises and disasters have, of course, always been
with us. Yet the political and administrative challenges
are likely to deepen as their character changes (Beck,
1992). It is not just that the crises of the near future will
be increasingly frequent and generate higher impact, as
is often argued (Posner, 2004; Power, 2007). This may
be true, as the agents of adversity are likely to gain
Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management
Volume 18 Number 4 December 2010
Chris Ansell, Arjen Boin and Ann Keller
destructive potential as a result of climate change,
terrorism and new technologies (Rosenthal, Boin, &
Comfort, 2001). We are talking about a deeper, more
structural shift that can alter the nature of crises and
crisis management: crises appear to be increasingly
transboundary in nature.
We can describe the transboundary nature of any crisis
or disaster in terms of three dimensions – the higher a
crisis scores on each dimension, the more transboundary
it is.
The first dimension refers to political boundaries.
Many crises fall within a geographically bounded poli-
tical jurisdiction, such as a town (a factory explosion)
or a country (a political crisis). Some crises cross-
territorial boundaries and threaten multiple cities,
regions, countries or even continents. A financial crisis
and a pandemic are textbook examples of crises that do
not respect national borders and wreak havoc across
the world.
A crisis can cross-political boundaries vertically and
horizontally. When lower levels of government (cities,
counties, provinces, states) are overwhelmed by a
crisis, for example, they may require assistance from
higher levels of government (national, regional, inter-
national). This is the vertical dimension of transbound-
ary activity. A crisis can also spread horizontally across
the boundaries between two political jurisdictions
operating at the same level of government – like
two cities or two nations. We expect transboundary
crisis management to be more difficult when both
vertical and horizontal coordination is required
(Chisholm, 1989).
The second dimension is functional. A crisis can fall
neatly within a policy area (think of a prison riot). Many
crises, however, jump functional boundaries, threaten-
ing multiple life-sustaining systems, functions or infra-
structures. For instance, crises cross from a financial
system into an industrial system (the credit crunch
putting US car makers under siege), from private to
public (the BP oil spill), from one sector of industry to
another (a crisis in the car industry affects the steel
industry). Crises that cross-functional boundaries are
difficult to manage because they often involve systems
with different logics and operating imperatives. When
systems fall under the purview of different organiza-
tions, political interests and professional norms tend to
diverge. Because systems are often only loosely or
incidentally coupled and may be designed to function
independently, crises that cross-functional boundaries
often surprise their operators and constituents.
The third dimension is time. Some crisis events are
clearly demarcated in time: they have a defined begin-
ning and ending. Many crises, however, transcend such
time boundaries. Their roots run deep (like in the 9/11
crisis) and their effects are felt years down the road
(the financial crisis, global climate change) (Birkland,
& 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Managing Transboundary Crises
2009). This may be because they are not single events,
but rather a concatenation of related events. Or it may
be that a crisis has multiple effects that appear on
different time scales. An oil spill, for example, may have
immediate effects on shore birds and marine mammals,
while effects on other marine life take longer to appear.
Crises that cross temporal boundaries are difficult to
manage because they may require first responders to
sustain the response for extended periods or because
they create uncertainty about when to stand down a
response. They can also contribute to the fragmenta-
tion of response, because different functional capabil-
ities have to be mobilized at different times.
In general, a crisis that scores high on all three
dimensions is our ideal-typical transboundary crisis.1
For the reasons suggested above, we expect a trans-
boundary crisis to be more difficult to respond to than
a crisis that scores low on each of these dimensions.
However, even two crises that score high on trans-
boundary dimensions may vary significantly in terms
of the difficulty of response. This difficulty will vary
according to the nature of interdependence among
jurisdictions, sectors and time periods. Because crises
that produce extensive or complex interdependencies
across jurisdictions, sectors or time create greater
demands for joint cooperation and coordination, we
expect them to be more difficult to manage.
The varying nature of interdependence can be de-
scribed using Thompson’s (1967) classical distinction
between pooled, sequential and reciprocal interdepen-
dence. With pooled interdependence, two jurisdictions
may together be affected by a crisis, but crisis response
does not require a coordinated response (e.g., while
Chernobyl created a more complex interdependence
on surveillance and trade, the immediate emergency
response was largely unilateral). With sequential inter-
dependence, the ‘outputs’ from the crisis response of
one jurisdiction may affect the ‘inputs’ to another
jurisdiction (e.g., the response of one country to a
novel disease outbreak or to a banking crisis will affect
whether and how it spreads to other countries). As a
result, the downstream jurisdiction has a vested inter-
est in upstream response and may strategically offer
support or advice to the affected jurisdiction. Finally,
reciprocal interdependence produces the need for a
joint response (e.g., imagine an oil spill on an interna-
tional river like the Danube). As a result, jurisdictions
increasingly have to manage their interdependence
through simultaneous coordination in real time
(Thompson called this ‘mutual adaptation’). This kind
of coordination places a heavy burden on rapid and
transparent communication and on high levels of trust,
which are difficult to establish between organizations
that do not maintain routine interactions.
In the next section, we will primarily discuss the
political and administrative challenges that appear as
& 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
197
crises become more transboundary in nature and as the
interdependence across jurisdictions, sectors and time
becomes more extensive and complex.
3. Political-administrative challenges
Crises pose specific political-administrative challenges
that must be addressed if the response is to be perceived
as effective and legitimate (Boin et al., 2005).2 The crisis
management literature identifies a host of challenges
(Janis, 1989; Drennan & McConnell, 2007; LaPorte,
2007; Lagadec, 2009). In this section, we discuss four
prevalent political-administrative crisis response chal-
lenges mentioned in the literature:
 coping with uncertainty;
 providing surge capacity;
 organizing a response;
 communicating with the public.
3.1. Challenge #1: coping with uncertainty
Uncertainty is a crucial challenge for crisis managers.
There are at least three types of crisis uncertainty: (1)
uncertainty about the source of the problem (What
caused this? How could this have happened?); (2) uncer-
tainty about the evolution of the problem (What is
happening, exactly? What will be next? What will the
effects be?); and (3) uncertainty about possible solutions
(How can we best mitigate or correct the problem?). In
combination, the various types of uncertainty can have a
debilitating effect on the effectiveness of crisis managers
(Janis, 1989; Weick, 1993).
When a crisis takes on transboundary dimensions, we
may expect uncertainty to deepen dramatically. The causes
of a crisis become harder to understand when a crisis
stretches across countries, policy sectors, time or all three
at the same time. This is particularly true when resolving
uncertainty involves either sequential interdependence –
where one must wait for another organization or jurisdic-
tion to reduce its uncertainty before you can reduce yours
– or where interdependence is reciprocal and two
organizations or jurisdictions must coordinate in real
time to reduce their respective or collective uncertainty.
Interestingly, in the case of pooled interdependence,
it might be that uncertainty is more easily managed if a
crisis has transboundary components. This can occur
because multiple jurisdictions engaged in trying to
understand the same problem may be able to create a
more accurate picture of the problem than a single
jurisdiction working in isolation. To illustrate, during the
1999 outbreak of the West Nile virus in the United
States, human cases of the disease were initially diag-
nosed as encephalitis. At the same time, a veterinary
pathologist at the Bronx Zoo was managing several
Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management
Volume 18 Number 4 December 2010
198
deaths among birds housed at the zoo. She linked her
findings to reports of human cases and began to argue
that a single pathogen was responsible for both out-
breaks (Knight, 2002; Weick, 2006). The presence in
this example of two sectors – human and veterinary –
led to a more rapid correction of the original encepha-
litis diagnosis than might otherwise have been the case.
Notwithstanding the West Nile case, the trans-
boundary nature of problems typically complicates
problem diagnosis. Since research shows that distrib-
uted sense making is a very difficult task even for
localized crises and disasters (Turner, 1978; Reason,
1990; Weick, 1993; Hutchins, 1995; Comfort, 2007;
Militello, Patterson, Bowman, & Wears, 2007; Reddy,
Paul, Abraham, McNeese, DeFitch, & Yen, 2009), the
ways in which transboundary crises magnify that com-
plexity merit further investigation.
Consider the outbreak of a novel infectious disease,
which creates a context of epistemic uncertainty and
ambiguity (Garrett, 1994; Alkan, 2001; Barry, 2004).
Information about the number and distribution of cases
is rarely complete and little may be known about how the
disease spreads. Incomplete or contradictory signals
often prevent a clear diagnosis.3 Even when public officials
have a general understanding of how the disease spreads
(in public spaces, through modern transportation, as the
result of poor hygiene, etc.), they can never anticipate,
with any certainty, the precise channels of contagion.
The uncertainty deepens if officials are dependent on
information held by other jurisdictions or countries to
manage their own uncertainty. Information may not be
immediately forthcoming, it may follow a different meth-
odology or it may simply be misleading. When the
unfolding crisis crosses policy boundaries – something
that might happen if the suspected source of the outbreak
was bioterrorism – the zone of uncertainty further
widens. New organizations, following a different set of
aims and procedures (secrecy becoming a key con-
straint), will own pieces of the information puzzle. As
the crisis is traced back in time, and its potential
consequences stretch into the future, it becomes harder
and harder for a localized organization to make sense of
the unfolding crisis (cf. Turner, 1978).
3.2. Challenge #2: providing surge capacity
Crises push response organizations into overdrive and
require them to mobilize a substantial increase in
resources. Further, response systems must match ac-
tivities and outputs to the appropriate scale of the
crisis, something that requires adequate assessment of
the scope of the crises. Heller, Bunning, France, Nie-
meyer, Peruski, Niami, Talboy, Murray, Pietz, Kornblum,
Oleszko, Beatrice, Joint Microbiological Rapid Re-
sponse Team and New York City Anthrax Investigation
Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management
Volume 18 Number 4 December 2010
Chris Ansell, Arjen Boin and Ann Keller
Working Group (2002, p. 1097) vividly describe how
laboratories had to ‘ramp up’ during the 2001 anthrax
attack in the United States:
Both the types of laboratory activities and their scale
changed dramatically. The sample volume increased
approximately 3,000 times for both environmental
and clinical testing. Not surprisingly, the number
of laboratories and ancillary spaces BTRL
(Bioterrorism Response Laboratory) required in-
creased almost twenty-fold, and 25 times more
personnel than originally envisioned staffed these
additional areas. New instrumentation was brought
into BTRL to attempt to process the sample volume
more quickly. To supply this dramatic surge, six tons
of equipment and supplies was needed. The scale of
the operation and the tracking needs threatened to
overwhelm support staff, and a hastily constructed
but workable database system was put into place.
Surge capacity may decline as a crisis spreads across
boundaries. To illustrate, public health agencies in the
United States are encouraged to locate potential surge
capacity in the form of equipment and personnel from
neighbouring locations to aid in a crisis. Typically, agencies
will create reciprocal agreements where one jurisdiction
pledges to lend resources to the other when the latter
jurisdiction faces a demanding outbreak and vice versa.
During the H1N1 pandemic, however, public health
officials’ local responsibilities prevented them from hon-
ouring such agreements – no one was available to go ‘on
loan’ to another location. Public health agencies had to
find slack resources internally and scrambled to retrain
non-infectious disease specialists for the H1N1 response
(Ansell, Keller, & Reingold, 2009). This example does not
neatly follow Thompson’s categories of pooled, sequen-
tial or reciprocal interdependence. However, it does raise
a problem of cross-jurisdictional dependence in that the
ability to plan for resources from elsewhere in a larger
network of public health actors is eroded by the trans-
boundary nature of the crisis.
3.3. Challenge #3: organizing a response
One of the most difficult challenges during crises and
disasters is to coordinate an effective response. To
counter the threat and to alleviate the consequences,
many organizations have to collaborate to identify,
allocate, transport and deliver (or apply) resources.
Simple as it sounds, many disasters – from Katrina to
Haiti – have demonstrated just how hard this can be.
The organization of an effective crisis response consists
of two crucial components. To meet the extraordinary
demands that crises and disasters impose upon a society,
its organizations will have to mobilize people, money and
& 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Managing Transboundary Crises
goods. But mobilization in itself is not enough. The efforts
of all these organizations, and all the people within these
organizations, must be coordinated to ensure an effective
response. The challenge is thus one of ‘coordinated
mobilization’. Let us unpack this concept to see how
increased transboundedness impacts on the challenge.
In virtually each and every crisis, coordination turns
out to be a substantial challenge (Quarantelli, 1988;
’t Hart, Rosenthal, & Kouzmin, 1993; Kettl, 2003). People
and organizations, with very different motivations and
resources, must suddenly work together in a stressed
environment with very little information. As emerging
crises rarely correspond exactly, or even remotely, with
the plans in place (due to their inconceivable nature), it
is not always clear who should ‘own’ the crisis. A crisis
can become a hot potato, tossed from one authority to
the other; it can also become a coveted responsibility
claimed by multiple agencies. Even when everybody
agrees that cooperation is essential, it is not always
clear who should orchestrate the cooperative effort. In
fact, the research on crisis coordination suggests that
‘less is more’: self-organization tends to work better
than imposed cooperation schemes (Kendra & Wach-
tendorf, 2003; cf. Chisholm, 1989).
Once a crisis assumes transboundary characteristics,
it is difficult to delimit its territorial, temporal or func-
tional boundaries. Not only does this murk responsibil-
ities, it also adds ever-larger number of actors in need of
coordination (the number of interaction relations rises
exponentially). Consequently, it is difficult to know who
should be mobilized and what role and priority they
should have in the response system.
Two coordination challenges become particularly
acute in a transboundary crisis. The first type stems
from the challenge of inter-jurisdictional coordination,
which has vertical and horizontal dimensions. Horizon-
tally, a city must coordinate with other cities in the
region or a nation must coordinate with a neighbouring
nation. Vertically, the same cities must coordinate with
their provincial and national governments. National
governments, in turn, may have to coordinate with
international organizations. Constraints related to the
independent sovereignty of each unit make inter-
jurisdictional coordination difficult. The second type
of coordination challenge arises from inter-sectoral co-
ordination. Although institutions representing different
functional domains may not be ‘sovereign’ in the same
sense that territorial jurisdictions are, they often differ
significantly in their logics and priorities. This problem
can become particularly acute in public–private entities.
Consider, again, the outbreak of an epidemic that
crosses geographical and functional boundaries. The
public health infrastructure is anything but a single,
well-integrated organization.4 At best, it is what sys-
tems engineers, referring to highly complex technolo-
gies, call a ‘system of systems’. For each new threat, an
& 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
199
emergent network of local, national and international
public health authorities, laboratories and university
research centres must be quickly cobbled together on a
temporary and ad hoc (e.g., customized) basis. Under
certain circumstances, say a particularly severe epi-
demic or a bioterrorist event, the crisis will escalate
beyond the public health infrastructure and involve the
state’s security apparatus. If the crisis continues to
escalate, other states, the federal government, private
organizations, the military and international organiza-
tions may all become key players. The responsibilities
and relations between these actors are not clearly
defined, but they must be organized in such a way
that they can work rapidly in concert.
Communication difficulties are likely to compound
the challenge, especially when there is no established,
high-status organization that can act as a hub for
information collection and dissemination. Response
organizations often develop dedicated systems of
communication, specialized for their purposes. These
dedicated systems typically produce communication
incompatibilities across response organizations
(9/11 Commission, 2002; Snook, 2000). In addition,
information is likely to flow most easily between
jurisdictions and between organizations that have had
frequent or routine contact as a result of previous
events. Prior interaction is likely to create channels of
both informal and formal communication (Kapucu,
2006). Yet transboundary crises bring together jurisdic-
tions and organizations that have not been frequent
collaborators.
Returning to the problem of mobilization, research
shows that it is not always easy to find the required
resources or personnel (every crisis is different) and
deploy them in time.5 This organizational challenge
becomes much harder when a crisis becomes trans-
boundary. An effective response to a transboundary
crisis must typically operate at multiple scales simulta-
neously. Mobilization may have to range from the local
to the international level (this happens when local
communities are asked to mobilize support for inter-
national disaster assistance). Each shift mobilizes a new
set of response institutions, requiring adaptation of
coordinating frameworks and authority relations. In
addition to the coordination problems described above,
simultaneous mobilization at multiple scales tends to
create conflicts over priorities and resource allocation
across levels. Almost by definition, coordination and
mobilization efforts necessary during a transboundary
crisis will be sequential if not reciprocal in nature. In
order to define its own role well, an organization must
have some sense of what other actors are doing or
intend to do.
The response to Hurricane Katrina exemplifies these
problems. As the impact of the disaster was experi-
enced in three different states (Louisiana, Mississippi
Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management
Volume 18 Number 4 December 2010
200
and Alabama), the response had to be scaled up quickly.
But it was not clear from where (scaling up became
effectively impossible as the local level hardly func-
tioned). Moreover, it was hard to set priorities (New
Orleans received much attention, but other areas were
hard hit as well). International assistance was offered,
but often refused. The federal government could not
muster sufficient resources in time to avoid intense
criticism. The private sector and the response agencies
found it hard to cooperate, which resulted in sad tales
about wasted resources (Dowty & Wallace, 2010).
3.4. Challenge #4: communicating with the public
(meaning making)
In a crisis, political leaders are expected to reduce
uncertainty and provide an authoritative account of
what is going on, why it is happening and what needs to
be done (’t Hart, 1993). When they have made sense of
the events and have formulated a strategy, leaders must
get others to accept their definition of the situation. If
they are not successful, their decisions may not be
understood or respected.
Public leaders are not the only ones trying to frame
the crisis. Their messages coincide and compete with
those of other parties, who hold other positions and
interests, who are likely to espouse various alternative
definitions of the situation and advocate different
courses of action. If other actors succeed in dominating
this meaning-making process, the ability of incumbent
leaders to decide and manoeuvre is severely con-
strained.
It is often difficult for authorities to provide correct
information right away. They struggle with the mountains
of raw data (reports, rumours, pictures) that are quickly
amassed when something extraordinary happens. Turning
them into a coherent picture of the situation is a major
challenge by itself. Getting it out to the public in the form
of accurate, clear and actionable information requires a
major public relations effort. This effort is often hindered
by the aroused state of the audience: people whose lives
are deeply affected tend to be anxious if not stressed.
Moreover, they do not necessarily see the government as
their ally. And pre-existing distrust of government does
not evaporate in times of crisis.
When a crisis involves an increasing number of
political, administrative and sectoral authorities, it
becomes harder to produce one clear and coherent
message that relieves collective stress and provides
people with actionable advice. In fact, the rising number
of actors increases the chances of contradicting mes-
sages, which may heighten fear and hamper coopera-
tion. Like the problems that arise from transboundary
coordination, communication during a transboundary
crisis is likely to display dynamics of sequential and even
Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management
Volume 18 Number 4 December 2010
Chris Ansell, Arjen Boin and Ann Keller
reciprocal interdependence as multiple sources of
information will be available and messaging across
response organizations will be dynamic.
For example, during the initial response to the 2009
H1N1 outbreak in the United States, federal officials
made an early recommendation endorsing school clo-
sures as a mitigation strategy and then, only a few days
later, revised their recommendation by leaving the
decision about school closure up to local officials.
Although there were good reasons for federal officials
to hand off this decision to local authorities, the
reversal created the impression that federal officials
were uncertain about how best to respond to the
outbreak. Moreover, as counties adopted different
stances with regard to school closure, it became clear
that there was no uniform mitigation strategy within
the United States, at least up until the time when the
H1N1 vaccination became available. Consistent messa-
ging continued to be elusive in the United States when
the White House released a statement predicting
approximately 90,000 deaths due to H1N1 over the
course of the 2009–2010 flu season. Officials at the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
responded with their own much lower estimate
of 30,000 deaths. The CDC estimate created a com-
munication challenge for the White House, which
then had to defend the estimate it produced. Here,
we see that no organization can completely own the
communications space and is likely to have to respond
to the actions of other organizations as the crisis
unfolds.
4. The need for boundary-spanning
capacities
Each challenge described above is hard in itself (many
books have been written on each one of them). To
perform adequately in the face of a ‘localized’ crisis is,
in other words, no mean feat. In this section, we have
shown that a ‘transboundary shift’ compounds these
challenges, especially when such a shift produces se-
quential or pooled interdependence. In this section, we
explore what is needed to build a response system that
can reach across boundaries and bring together avail-
able capacities in an effective and timely manner.
Drawing upon crisis and disaster management re-
search, and building on insights from public administra-
tion research and organization theory, we identify four
boundary-spanning mechanisms that we believe are
essential for an effective transboundary response: dis-
tributed sense making; networked coordination; surge
capacity; and formal scaling procedures. Below, we
briefly introduce these mechanisms and discuss how
they may allow a system to cope with the challenges
posed by transboundary crises.
& 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Managing Transboundary Crises
4.1. Distributed sense making
As we have seen above, a transboundary crisis makes it
hard to arrive at a common operating picture (sometimes
called shared cognition or situational awareness). Such a
picture must somehow be pulled from incomplete,
often contradictory and continuously changing informa-
tion that is distributed over a large and shifting number
of actors (Lagadec, 1997; Comfort, 1999; Weick &
Sutcliffe, 2001; Moynihan, 2008; Demchak, 2010).
The term sense making refers to a range of informa-
tional and cognitive tasks that runs from crisis detection
and tracking, through interpretation and analysis, to
decision-making. Institutional features required for
transboundary sense making would include:
(1) Detection and surveillance systems that collect basic
data about the origins, distribution and intensity of
crisis events (Jebara, 2004; Sorenson, 2000). The
literature shows that such systems exist for known
threats (think about flooding, earthquakes and
tsunamis) but remain wanting in the area of man-
made crises (such as financial breakdowns and
terrorist attacks). The core problem is that it is
impossible to develop indicators for unique crises.
(2) Analytical capacity (ranging from experts to the use
of laboratories) in order to analyse incoming data.
The art of sense making is discovering patterns in a
deluge of raw data (and an absence of ‘hard’
information). This requires a combination of human
intellect and sophisticated hardware, a combination
that is rarely available under the best of circum-
stances (Van der Walle, Turoff, & Hiltz, 2010). The
management literature suggests that ‘absorptive
capacity’ – the ability to absorb new information,
ideas and knowledge (Zahra & George, 2002) – may
be especially helpful, but it remains unclear how
such capacity can be built at the system level.
(3) Real-time communications to collect and verify in-
formation about the unfolding threat and the
damages caused. This is to a considerable extent
simply a hardware problem: it is often impossible to
communicate properly in the heat of crisis (Rey-
nolds & Seeger, 2005). Progress on technological
fixes is on-going, but the problem has not been
solved. The contemporary reliance on ever-larger
amounts of data will continue to pose a challenge to
crisis-struck information structures.
(4) Decision support systems to overcome inherent hu-
man limitations (Simon, 1997) and to facilitate rapid
yet informed decision-making. In theory, a decision
support system helps assess information, suggests
decision options and offers scenarios. In recent
years, much progress has been made in the actual
development of such systems, but a shared stan-
dard has not emerged (Comfort, 2007; Demchak,
2010; Van der Walle et al., 2010).
& 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
201
The literature is not particularly hopeful when it
comes to creating capacities for distributed sense
making. Because key pieces of information are usually
distributed across territorial or functional boundaries,
patterns may be particularly difficult to detect. Even if
relevant signals are detected by separate surveillance
systems, these signals may not be brought together in a
way that allows analysts to detect the relevant pattern
in time. Spotting the relevance of a bit of information
may require contextual knowledge or information that
only other response organizations possess (Turner,
1978). The difficulties that the CIA and the FBI en-
countered in detecting the pattern of terrorist activity
that led to 9/11 is one well-known example of this kind
of sense-making failure.
The World Health Organization’s (WHO) response
to the SARS outbreak provides a good example of
distributed sense making working well during a trans-
boundary crisis. WHO used the Global Outbreak Alert
and Response Network (GOARN) to provide decision
support to responders globally. The GOARN is a
network of institutions and experts who participate in
outbreak surveillance and can be mobilized for out-
break response in innumerable configurations (WHO,
2009). To rapidly increase knowledge about the cause,
epidemiology and clinical management of SARS, the
WHO relied on the GOARN to create four distinct
response networks: a senior management group that
advised the WHO on its global alerts and travel
recommendations (Michelson, 2005); a virtual labora-
tory made up of an international network of research-
ers tasked with isolating the disease agent; a network of
health officials working to establish clinical guidelines
for managing the disease; and a network of epidemiol-
ogists providing updated information about the spread
of the disease (WHO, 2003a).
During the outbreak, WHO provided real-time
communication by drawing daily information from the
field and by disseminating validated information to local
responders. The WHO gathered information from the
field through daily tele- and videoconferences with its
dispatched, operational GOARN teams. The GOARN
teams themselves could pool information across the
sites where they were working (WHO, 2003b). The
WHO made daily updates to its website to convey
the most recent information about the spread of the
disease. It also created a SARS operational team that
could provide advice to local responders around the
clock (WHO, 2003b).
This example suggests several elements that may
enhance distributed sense making during a transbound-
ary crisis. First, when many stakeholders are involved, it
may be useful to have an independent central hub that
can coordinate and relay information between them.
In this case, GOARN served this important function.
Second, this hub must play a clearinghouse role,
Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management
Volume 18 Number 4 December 2010
202
connecting different types of information and decision-
making in a relatively seamless fashion. Third, this
independent hub needs to be scaled up to a level that
encompasses all the stakeholders involved in the event.
SARS quickly became a global crisis and GOARN was
designed to coordinate information and response on a
global level. Fourth, in addition to a clearinghouse role,
this independent hub has to be able to operate directly
in the field itself. A key to the GOARN success was its
ability to deploy field teams to affected areas. These
field teams could then relay breaking information back
to WHO headquarters.
The fact that the WHO is a high-status organization in
international health is likely to have played a role in the
success of this instance of distributed sense making.
Additionally, the success of the GOARN may stem from
its organizational merits, but also from the fact that sense
making, in this case, created pooled interdependence
where each city responding to its local outbreak did not
necessarily need information from other cities in order to
manage its response. Those cities that did compare notes
with their counterparts, however, do appear to have fared
better in managing the outbreak and clinical cases than
those that pursued sense making in isolation.
4.2. Surge capacity: rapid, sustainable and
properly scaled deployment
Disaster aid to foreign disaster areas produce the most
complex operations imaginable, as these operations
involve a wide variety of actors that must collaborate,
often in hostile or in inhospitable territory, to collect,
transport and distribute scarce resources (McClintock,
2009). The capacities required to facilitate a rapid
response at the right scale have been thoroughly
studied by students of disaster supply chains (Boin,
Kelle, & Whybark, 2010). A prescriptive list typically
includes the following components:
1. Professional first responders. Surge capacity requires
that first responders can be mobilized quickly and
deployed across geographical boundaries. First respon-
ders tend to be well versed in the art of improvisation.
Yet, it is not clear whether first responders are ready
to work in areas and crises that their training and
experience may not have prepared them for.
2. Supply chain management. Rapid deployment of peo-
ple and resources requires sophisticated manage-
ment of supply chains. The research in this area has
been growing rapidly in recent years (Van Wassen-
hove, 2006; Kovacs & Spens, 2007). The research has
identified a plethora of constraints operating on
response operations across scales; it has also deliv-
ered very promising software capacities to enhance
supply chain management for crisis management.
Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management
Volume 18 Number 4 December 2010
Chris Ansell, Arjen Boin and Ann Keller
3. Fast track procedures. Many standard operating pro-
cedures in organizations are designed to work on a
time scale of months or years, whereas the time
scale of crises should be measured in hours, days and
weeks. In addition, the deployment of assets is often
a political issue for agencies governed by budgetary,
jurisdictional and accountability concerns. The mo-
bilization and deployment of resources requires the
ability to rapidly adapt or work around administra-
tive procedures and systems designed for more
leisurely review and decision-making. For instance,
it would mean that accreditation standards for
certain professionals (such as doctors) would be
temporarily waived to facilitate a rapid response.
Research time and again shows and explains that this
type of flexibility does not come natural to public
organizations, which typically work best with time-
proven routines (Wilson, 1989).
4. An integrated command center. A complex crisis
response requires a pre-designated and pre-
organized location from which to centrally manage
the mobilization and deployment of resources
(Mignone & Davidson, 2003; Militello et al., 2007).
Such a centre must be connected with centres at
other administrative levels and with centres in other
sectors. In recent years, we have seen the profes-
sionalization of command centres in the United
States and Europe. In fact, in terms of command
infrastructures, we may say that the situation has
never been better. But it remains unclear how inter-
connected these centres are in practice.
What all these components require to function in
response to transboundary threats (rather than the
more localized threats that gave rise to their design) is
organizational adaptability. The ability to rapidly recon-
figure organizations and activities is somewhat of a Holy
Grail in organizational research. The management
literature suggests that organizations can develop
routines that will enable them to respond rapidly to
changing technological and market conditions (Teece,
Pisano, & Shuen, 1997; Eisenhardt & Martin, 2000). This
literature suggests that adaptive capacity depends on
‘combinative capabilities’ – the ability to recombine
existing knowledge and skills to develop new responses
to emerging situations (Kogut & Zander, 1992; Wang &
Ahmed, 2007). The lesson from this literature is that
crisis response systems need specialized routines dedi-
cated to helping them respond dynamically.6
The US Coast Guard’s response during Hurricane
Katrina provides a good example of a public organiza-
tion that rapidly adapted to the scale of the disaster. A
General Accountability Office review of the response
found that a combination of geographically distributed
organizational structure and standardization allowed
the US Coast Guard to respond quickly and flexibly
& 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Managing Transboundary Crises
to the crisis. The distributed organizational structure
allowed the Coast Guard to deploy mobilized assets
and first responders to where they were most needed.
At the same time, standardization across the organiza-
tion allowed teams assembled from different units to
work effectively together (GAO, 2006). Other exam-
ples of organizations that harbour such routines include
the US Marine Corps and the Federal Bureau of
Prisons.7
4.3. Networked coordination
A successful response to a crisis or a disaster is marked
by rapid support, participation and cooperation from
mission-critical stakeholders (the public, private orga-
nizations, interest groups, international partners, etc.).
Some type of coordinative effort is needed to orches-
trate, synchronize and adjust cooperation between
organizations that may have never worked with each
other before. To accomplish such a degree of coordina-
tion under conditions of uncertainty, urgency and stress
– without clearly defined authority relations – is a
difficult task under the best of circumstances.
Two opposing schools of thought dominate the
literature on coordination. One argues for establishing
in advance of a crisis a system for creating authority
structures across organizations and jurisdictions. An-
other argues that pre-established hierarchies will never
be adequate to the specific features of a given crisis and
that to enable self-organizing during a crisis will be the
most effective approach.
The US disaster response community adheres to the
first school. To cope with the coordination challenge, it has
developed the Incident Command System (ICS), which,
in recent years, has become the de facto and sometimes
de jure standard of emergency coordination in the United
States.8 ICS offers a common operating philosophy and
architecture that can help disparate entities work to-
gether; trained officials find it easy to cooperate in this
standardized approach to emergencies (it has proved
especially effective in the fire-fighting community).
The scholarly community is still divided on the
question of whether ICS can or should be used for all
types of crises and disasters. The coordination of a
varied and evolving network of actors requires trust,
which typically has been established over time and
before crisis events. It is not easy to establish inter-
organization relationships on the fly (Kapucu, 2006) and
it is not clear whether ICS addresses this challenge.
The response to Katrina, for instance, was marred by
coordination failures, as most participants in the re-
sponse network reportedly were unaware of the exact
workings of ICS. Three years later, Louisiana’s response
to Hurricane Gustav was greatly facilitated by ICS. In
the aftermath of the Columbia shuttle disaster, ICS
& 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
203
proved useful in coordinating approximately 450 orga-
nizations (including 120 government agencies), which
collaborated in a 2,000 square miles area to search and
collect shuttle debris (Donahue, 2004). It was also quite
successfully used in the response to the 9/11 attack on
the Pentagon (Varley, 2003) and in California’s response
to a public health crisis (Moynihan, 2008, 2009).
The second school maintains that complex response
operations cannot be managed or even coordinated in a
top-down fashion from some central office (Harrald,
Cohn, & Wallace, 1992; McEntire, 2002; Kettl, 2003; cf.
Chisholm, 1989).9 A key finding in disaster research is
that self-organizing is often very effective in times of
disaster (Kendra & Wachtendorf, 2003; Solnit, 2009).
This finding strongly suggests that political leaders should
monitor and facilitate the process of a self-organizing
response system rather than try to control and command
it. A coordinated response builds on an intricate mix of
limited (but effective) central governance and a high level
of self-organization (or administrative resilience).
One of the most intricate, scaled-up coordination
mechanisms is found in the European Union (EU),
where member states and EU institutions have devel-
oped a combination of formal and informal procedures
to coordinate the actions of member states (Boin &
Rhinard, 2008). For instance, the Civil Protection
Mechanism facilitates a coordinated surge of member
states who want to contribute to a shared disaster
response. The so-called Crisis Coordination Arrange-
ments are explicitly designed with an eye on trans-
boundary crises with a highly politicized dimension. In a
system consisting of 27 member states that guard their
sovereignty (especially during crises), the EU has be-
come a legitimate platform for cooperation and co-
ordination for a wide variety of crises and disasters.
4.4. Formal boundary-spanning structures
In any crisis, it is important that critical decisions are
made at the appropriate level of authority (’t Hart et al.,
1993). It is, of course, not always clear who should
make which decisions as crises are non-routine situa-
tions. Most governing procedures and authority struc-
tures were not designed with emerging crises in mind.
The solution is usually found in the formulation of
formal structures and procedures that apply to these
unforeseen circumstances and have to be formally
triggered according to pre-set procedures (think of
formal disaster declarations).
The extreme dispersion of authority (or the lack of
clear ‘ownership’) that is characteristic of a transbound-
ary crisis requires formal structures that prescribe how
decision-making authority is organized across geogra-
phical, policy and time boundaries. What is needed is a
transboundary authority structure that can be triggered in
Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management
Volume 18 Number 4 December 2010
204
times of crisis and that will help minimize confusion and
bureaucratic infighting. Such a framework is unlikely to
be invented ‘on the fly’. Moreover, the legal dimensions
of such a framework must be carefully thought through
(cf. Egan, 2010).
A good example can be found in the US National
Response Framework (NRF), which spells out how
authority relations can adapt to a transboundary crisis
(in this case, a crisis or a disaster that outstrips the
response capacities of a single state) (FEMA, 2008). The
NRF was first formulated after 9/11 and subsequently
updated after the flawed response to Hurricane Katrina
(2005). The 2008 hurricane season (with Gustav and Ike
lashing the Gulf Coast and Houston) offered a first major
test. Participating organizations at both the state and the
federal level seemed satisfied with the proposed proce-
dures, which worked well (cf. Boin & Egan, 2011).
5. Conclusion: towards a transboundary
research agenda
This paper shows that the challenges faced by crisis
managers who must respond to transboundary events
are not different in kind from those faced in ‘normal’,
more localized crises and disasters. What sets trans-
boundary crises apart, however, is that they create a need
for extreme adaptation and unprecedented cooperation
under conditions in which these are most difficult to
achieve – when the capacity and authority for response is
distributed across multiple organizations and jurisdictions
and when the crisis itself creates difficult patterns of
interdependence among the actors involved.
We have argued that the response to a transboundary
crisis requires a specific set of organizational and proce-
dural tools. An ideal-typical response network would
have distributed analytical capacity, surge potential, co-
ordinated behaviour and special authority arrangements.
Our review of several cases of transboundary crises
leads us to believe that a transboundary response
network cannot be viewed as the mere sum of indivi-
dual parts; it will require special, transboundary quali-
ties. Moreover, there may be a problematic tension in
the characteristics that such a response network must
display. The response system must operate ‘robustly’
across boundaries and at different scales. However,
transboundary crises also place a premium on the
nimbleness and adaptiveness of institutions. They
must have an expansive repertoire of routines and be
capable of rapid customization of their activity. They
must be capable of rapid reinterpretation of circum-
stances and timely reorganization of activities and
courses of action. In sum, transboundary crises demand
response organizations that can be robust and flexible.
Traditional public bureaucracies are not built to pro-
duce highly dynamic responses. They are designed to deal
Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management
Volume 18 Number 4 December 2010
Chris Ansell, Arjen Boin and Ann Keller
with routine problems that emerge in known ways
(Wilson, 1989). In order to better understand how
transboundary response networks might be developed
so that they can produce both robust and adaptable
responses, we argue that a more concerted study of
transboundary crises is required. This article helps iden-
tify a set of factors that should be part of such a study.
These characteristics should be checked against the cases
of both effective crisis management and abject failures.
Research on institutional design suggests a caution-
ary approach. Comprehensive design efforts rarely
work out as envisioned (cf. Goodin, 1996). We there-
fore propose an approach of institutional tinkering,
informed by research and evaluation. Research that
compares the experiences of networks responding to
the same or similar transboundary crises could link the
presence or absence of the four core capacities with
evidence of robust flexibility. As long as we do not
know what exactly makes a transboundary response
system, we should not risk the erosion of existing and
well-functioning response systems.
Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the
2009 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science
Association, Toronto, Canada, 3–6 September 2009.
We thank Todd R. LaPorte, Don Moynihan and our
fellow panelists for their valuable comments on this
earlier version. In addition, we are grateful for the
unsparing comments of Paul ’t Hart and Paul Schulman.
Finally, we thank the anonymous reviewers of this
journal for their perceptive comments and suggestions.
Notes
1. Consequently, in the remainder of this paper, a transbound-
ary crisis is shorthand for a crisis that scores high on at least
two of three transboundary dimensions outlined above.
2. We are less worried about the traditional criterion of
efficiency. While an important benchmark for public
performance under normal circumstances, it usually
becomes less important during and even after a crisis.
3. For example, during the H1N1 outbreak of Spring 2009,
the severity of the influenza strain was difficult to
determine due to the limited information that public
health officials had about the actual number of cases.
This occurs because medical providers are likely to see
only the more severe cases and are unable to count mild
cases that never visit hospitals or clinics. Outbreaks of
novel infectious agents, like Toxic Shock Syndrome or
HIV/AIDS, posed substantial uncertainties as health offi-
cials struggled to identify the cause(s) and risk factors
associated with contracting a new disease.
& 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Managing Transboundary Crises
4. In the United States, the ‘public health system’ is a loosely
affiliated network of approximately 3,000 federal, state
and local health, often working closely with private sector
voluntary and professional health associations (Trust for
America’s Health, 2005). The IOM defines a public health
system as a complicated web of different entities that
include the governmental public health infrastructure,
community organizations, health care delivery systems,
employers and businesses, media and academia.
5. See the special issue in the International Journal of Produc-
tion Economics (Boin, Kelle, & Whybark, 2010).
6. Emergency credentialing systems provide a good example
of a recombinative routine. To utilize trained health care
personnel from other states during a disaster, it is
necessary to provide them with a temporary status.
Having emergency credentialing systems in place consid-
erably facilitates a scaled response. The response to
Hurricane Katrina shows that not all public organizations
possess this type of capacity.
7. The US Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) can rapidly
mobilize in response to prison riots, moving personnel
from one prison to the other. Because BOP personnel share
a set of core values and working routines, they can function
effectively in different federal prisons (DiIulio, 1994).
8. The Department of Homeland Security has adopted
these principles in its national doctrine for emergency
management (using the name National Incident Manage-
ment System). For a detailed description, consult the
recently published Department of Homeland Security
(2008).
9. But see the spectacularly successful wind down of air traffic
in North America in the hours following the 9/11 attacks.
References
Alkan, M.L. (2001), ‘Viral Epidemics: Past and Future’, in
Rosenthal, U., Boin, R.A. and Comfort, L.K. (eds.), Mana-
ging Crises: Threats, Dilemmas, Opportunities, Charles C
Thomas, Springfield, pp. 267–280.
Ansell, C., Keller, A. and Reingold, A. (2009), The Global
Infectious Disease Response System Project. Chris Ansell,
Ann Keller, and Art Reingold (Principal Investigators).
National Science Foundation. Project #0826995.
Barry, J.M. (2004), The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the
Deadliest Plague in History, Penguin, New York.
Barton, A. (1969), Communities in Disaster: A Sociological Analysis
of Collective Stress Situations, Doubleday, Garden City.
Beck, U. (1992), Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity, Sage,
London.
Birkland, T. (2009), ‘Disasters, Catastrophes, and Policy Fail-
ure in the Homeland Security Era’, Review of Policy Research,
Volume 26, Number 4, pp. 423–438.
Boin, R.A. and Egan, J. (2011), ‘Hurricane Gustav: The Manage-
ment of a Transboundary Crisis’, in Rosenthal, U., et al., (eds.),
Megacrises, Charles C Thomas, Springfield, (forthcoming).
Boin, R.A., ’t Hart, P., Stern, E. and Sundelius, B. (2005), The
Politics of Crisis Management, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, UK.
& 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
205
Boin, R.A., Kelle, P. and Whybark, C. (eds.) (2010), ‘Improving
Disaster Supply Chain Management’, International Journal of
Production Economics, Volume 126, Number 1.
Boin, R.A. and Rhinard, M. (2008), ‘The Management of
Transboundary Crises: What Role for the EU?’, International
Studies Review, Volume 10, Number 1, pp. 1–26.
Chisholm, D. (1989), Coordination Without Hierarchy: Informal
Structures in Multi-organizational Systems, University of California
Press, Berkley.
Comfort, L.K. (1999), Shared Risk: Complex Systems in Seismic
Response, Pergamon Press, New York.
Comfort, L.K. (2007), ‘Crisis Management in Hindsight: Cogni-
tion, Communication, Coordination, and Control’, Public
Administration Review, Volume 67, Number s1, pp. 189–197.
Demchak, C. (2010), ‘Lessons from the Military: Surprise,
Resilience and the Atrium Model’, in Comfort, L.K.,
Boin, R.A. and Demchak, C. (eds.), Designing Resilience:
Preparing for Extreme Events, Pittsburgh University Press,
Pittsburgh, pp. 62–83.
Department of Homeland Security (2008), National Response
Framework, Washington, DC, http://www.fema.gov/NRF.
DiIulio, J.J. (1994), ‘Principled Agents: The Cultural Bases of
Behavior in a Federal Agency’, Journal of Public Administration
Research and Theory, Volume 4, Number 3, pp. 277–318.
Donahue, A. (2004), ‘The Day the Sky Fell: The Space Shuttle
Columbia Disaster’, Public Management, Volume 86, Number
8, pp. 8–12.
Dowty, R.A. and Wallace, W.A. (2010), ‘Implications of
Organizational Culture for Supply Chain Disruption and
Restoration’, International Journal of Production Economics,
Volume 126, Number 1, pp. 57–65.
Drennan, L. and McConnell, A. (2007), Risk and Crisis Manage-
ment in the Public Sector, Routledge, Abingdon.
Dror, Y. (1986), Policymaking Under Adversity, Transaction, New
Brunswick.
Egan, J. (2010), ‘Private Goods and Services Contracts:
Increased Emergency Response Capacity or Increased
Vulnerability?’, International Journal of Production Economics,
Volume 126, Number 1, pp. 46–56.
Eisenhardt, K.M. and Martin, J.A. (2000), ‘Dynamic Capabil-
ities: What Are They?’, Strategic Management Journal,
Volume 21, Number 10/11, pp. 1105–1121.
FEMA (2008), National Response Framework, U.S. Department
of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Response
Agency, Washington, DC.
Garrett, L. (1994), The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases
in a World Out of Balance, Penguin, New York.
General Accountability Office (2006), Coast Guard: Observa-
tions on the Preparation, Response, and Recovery Missions
Related to Hurricane Katrina, Report to Congressional
Committees, GAO-06-903.
Goodin, R.E. (ed.), (1996), The Theory of Institutional Design,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
Harrald, J.R., Cohn, R. and Wallace, W.A. (1992), ‘‘‘We Were
Always Re-Organizing . . .’’: Some Crisis Management Im-
plications of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill’, Industrial Organiza-
tion Quarterly, Volume 6, pp. 1997–1217.
’t Hart, P. (1993), ‘Symbols, Rituals and Power: The Lost
Dimensions of Crisis Management’, Journal of Contin-
gencies and Crisis Management, Volume 1, Number 1,
pp. 36–50.
Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management
Volume 18 Number 4 December 2010
206
’t Hart, P., Rosenthal, U. and Kouzmin, A. (1993), ‘Crisis
Decision Making: The Centralization Thesis Revisited’,
Administration and Society, Volume 25, Number 1, pp. 12–45.
Heller, M.B., Bunning, M.L., France, M.E.B., Niemeyer, D.M.,
Peruski, L., Niami, T., Talboy, P.M., Murray, P.H., Pietz, H.W.,
Kornblum, J., Oleszko, W., Beatrice, S.T., Joint Microbiolo-
gical Rapid Response Team and New York City Anthrax
Investigation Working Group (2002), ‘Laboratory Response
to Anthrax Bioterrorism, New York City, 2001’, Emerging
Infectious Diseases, Volume 8, Number 10, pp. 1096–1102.
Hutchins, E. (1995), Cognition in the Wild, MIT Press, Cambridge,
MA.
Janis, I.L. (1989), Crucial Decisions: Leadership in Policymaking
and Crisis Management, The Free Press, New York.
Jebara, K.B. (2004), ‘Surveillance, Detection, and Response:
Managing Emerging Diseases at National and International
Levels’, Revue Scientifique et Technique (International Office of
Epizootics), Volume 23, Number 2, pp. 709–715.
Kapucu, N. (2006), ‘Interagency Communication Networks
During Emergencies: Boundary Spanners in Multiagency
Coordination’, American Review of Public Administration,
Volume 36, Number 2, pp. 207–225.
Kendra, J.M. and Wachtendorf, T. (2003), ‘Elements of Com-
munity Resilience in the World Trade Center Attack’,
Disasters, Volume 27, Number 1, pp. 37–53.
Kettl, D.F. (2003), ‘Contingent Coordination: Practical and
Theoretical Puzzles for Homeland Security’, American
Review of Public Administration, Volume 33, Number 3, pp.
253–77.
Knight, J. (2002), ‘US Zoos Keep Watch for Cross-Species
Killer’, Nature, Volume 417, Number 30, pp. 477.
Kogut, B. and Zander, U. (1992), ‘Knowledge of the Firm,
Combinative Capabilities, and the Replication of Tech-
nology’, Organization Science, Volume 3, Number 3, pp.
383–397.
Kovacs, G. and Spens, K.M. (2007), ‘Humanitarian Logistics in
Disaster Relief Operations’, International Journal of Physical
Distribution and Logistics Management, Volume 37, Number
2, pp. 99–114.
Lagadec, P. (1997), ‘Learning Processes for Crisis Management
in Complex Organizations’, Journal of Contingencies and Crisis
Management, Volume 5, Number 1, pp. 24–31.
Lagadec, P. (2009), ‘A New Cosmology of Risks and Crises:
Time for a Radical Shift in Paradigm and Practice’, Review of
Policy Research, Volume 26, Number 4, pp. 473–486.
LaPorte, T.R. (2007), ‘Critical Infrastructure in the Face of a
Predatory Future: Preparing for Untoward Surprise’, Journal
of Contingencies and Crisis Management, Volume 15, Number
1, pp. 60–64.
McClintock, A. (2009), ‘The Logistics of Humanitarian
Emergencies: Notes from the Field’, Journal of Contingencies
and Crisis Management., Volume 17, Number 4, pp.
295–302.
McEntire, D.A. (2002), ‘Coordinating Multi-Organisational
Responses to Disaster: Lessons from the March 28, 2000,
Forth Worth Tornado’, Disaster Prevention and Management,
Volume 11, Number 5, pp. 369–379.
Michelson, E.S. (2005), ‘Dodging a Bullet: WHO, SARS and the
Successful Management of Infectious Disease’, Bulletin
of Science, Technology and Society, Volume 25, Number 5,
pp. 379–386.
Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management
Volume 18 Number 4 December 2010
Chris Ansell, Arjen Boin and Ann Keller
Mignone, A.T. Jr. and Davidson, R. (2003), ‘Public Health
Response Actions and the Use of Emergency Operations
Centers’, Prehospital and Disaster Medicine, Volume 18,
Number 3, pp. 217–218.
Militello, L.G., Patterson, E.S., Bowman, L. and Wears, R. (2007),
‘Information Flow During Crisis Management: Challenges to
Coordination in the Emergency Operations Center’, Cogni-
tion, Technology and Work, Volume 9, pp. 25–31.
Moynihan, D.P. (2008), ‘Learning Under Uncertainty: Net-
works in Crisis Management’, Public Administration Review,
Volume 68, Number 2, pp. 350–365.
Moynihan, D.P. (2009), ‘The Network Governance of Crisis
Response: Case Studies of Incident Command Systems’,
Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Volume
19, Number 4, pp. 895–915.
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United
States (2002), The 9/11 Commission Report, US Government
Printing Office, Washington, DC.
Posner, R.A. (2004), Catastrophe: Risk and Response, Oxford
University Press, New York.
Power, M. (2007), Organized Uncertainty: Designing a World of
Risk Management, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Quarantelli, E.L. (1988), ‘Disaster Crisis Management: A
Summary of Research Findings’, Journal of Management
Studies, Volume 25, Number 4, pp. 373–385.
Reason, J. (1990), Human Error, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, UK.
Reddy, M.C., Paul, S.A., Abraham, J., McNeese, M., DeFitch, C.
and Yen, J. (2009), ‘Challenges to Effective Crisis Manage-
ment: Using Information and Communication Technologies
to Coordinate Emergency Medical Services and Emergency
Department Teams’, International Journal of Medical Infor-
matics, Volume 78, pp. 259–269.
Reynolds, B. and Seeger, M.W. (2005), ‘Crisis and Emergency
Risk Communication as an Integrative Model’, Journal of
Health Communication, Volume 10, pp. 43–55.
Rosenthal, U., Boin, R.A. and Comfort, L.K. (eds.), (2001),
Managing Crises: Threats, Dilemmas, Opportunities, Charles C
Thomas, Springfield.
Rosenthal, U., Charles, M.T. and ’t Hart, P. (eds.), (1989),
Coping with Crises: The Management of Riots, Disasters and
Terrorism, Charles C Thomas, Springfield.
Simon, H.A. (1997), Administrative Behavior (4th edn), The Free
Press, New York.
Snook, S.A. (2000), Friendly Fire: The Accidental Shootdown of US
Black Hawks over Northern Iraq, Princeton University Press,
Princeton.
Solnit, R. (2009), A Paradise Bult in Hell: The Extra-
ordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster, Viking Adult,
New York.
Sorenson, J.H. (2000), ‘Hazard Warning Systems: Review of 20
Years of Progress’, Natural Hazards Review, Volume 1,
Number 2, pp. 119–125.
Teece, D.J., Pisano, G. and Shuen, A. (1997), ‘Dynamic
Capabilities and Strategic Management’, Strategic Manage-
ment Journal, Volume 18, Number 7, pp. 509–533.
Thompson, J.D. (1967), Organizations in Action, McGraw-Hill,
New York.
Trust for America’s Health (2005), Ready or Note? Protecting
the Public’s Health from Diseases, Disasters, and Bioterrorism,
Trust for America’s Health, Washington, DC.
& 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
 Managing Transboundary Crises
Turner, B.A. (1978), Man-Made Disasters: The Failure of Fore-
sight, Wykeham, London.
Van der Walle, B., Turoff, M. and Hiltz, S.R. (eds.), (2010),
Information Systems for Emergency Management, ME Sharpe,
Armonk, NY.
Van Wassenhove, LN. (2006), ‘Blackett Memorial Lecture:
Humanitarian Aid Logistics: Supply Chain Management in
High Gear’, Journal of the Operational Research Society,
Volume 57, pp. 475–489.
Varley, P. (2003), Command Performance: County Firefighters
Take Chared of the 9/11 Pentagon Emergency, John F. Kennedy
School of Government, Case Studies in Public Policy &
Management.
Wang, C.L. and Ahmed, P.K. (2007), ‘Dynamic Capabilities: A
Review and Research Agenda’, International Journal of Man-
agement Reviews, Volume 9, Number 1, pp. 31–51.
Weick, K.E. (1993), ‘The Collapse of Sensemaking in Organi-
zations: The Mann Gulch Disaster’, Administrative Science
Quarterly, Volume 38, Number 4, pp. 628–652.
& 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
View publication stats
207
Weick, K.E. (2006), ‘The Role of Imagination in the Organizing
of Knowledge’, European Journal of Information Systems
Volume, Volume 15, Number 1, pp. 446–452.
Weick, K.E. and Sutcliffe, K.M. (2001), Managing the Unex-
pected: Assuring High Performance in an Age of Complexity,
Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.
WHO (2003a), The World Health Report 2003: Shaping the
Future, World Health Organization, Geneva.
WHO (2003b), ‘The Operational Response to SARS’, Global alert
and response, http://www.who.int/csr/sars/goarn2003_4_16/
en/ (accessed 14 August 2009).
WHO (2009), ‘Global Outbreak Alert & Response Network’
Global alert and response, http://www.who.int/csr/outbreak
network/en/ (accessed 14 August 2009).
Wilson, J.Q. (1989), Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies
Do and Why They Do It, Basic Books, New York.
Zahra, S.A. and George, G. (2002), ‘Absorptive Capacity: A
Review, Reconceptualization, and Extension’, Academy of
Management Review, Volume 27, Number 2, pp. 185–203.
Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management
Volume 18 Number 4 December 2010