The Impact of a Strong Commitment on Disaster Resilience

Natural and technical disasters are abrupt and have a huge impact on relatively broad regions, yet little research has examined how local organizations overcome institutional collective action dilemmas in collaborative emergency management. Since simply participating in collective agreements and adopting coordination plans are inadequate for achieving effective collaboration in emergency situations, this research aims to test whether organizations’ decisions to engage in joint emergency programs are sufficient for building resilient emergency response networks. By utilizing a Heckman selection model with data derived from the 2012 and 2013 emergency management surveys in South Korea, factors that facilitate affiliation networks among the public organizations and enhance community resilience are identified. The results demonstrate how strong engagements though participation in joint exercises significantly influences disaster than formal planning and network affiliations. Thus network interactions forged by such full-scale exercises reduce transaction costs of collaboration and improve community resilience.