Understanding the Collaborative Process and Its Effects on Perceived Outcomes during Emergency Response in China: From Perspectives of Local Government Sectors

Abstract

In contemporary China, the rapidly urbanized cities are exposed to a broad range of natural and human-made emergencies, such as COVID-19. Responding to emergencies successfully requires widespread participation of local government sectors that engages in diversified collaboration behaviors across organizational boundaries for achieving sustainability. However, the multi-organizational collaborative process is highly dynamic and complex, as well as its outcomes are uncertain underlying the emergency response network. Examining characteristics of the collaborative process and exploring how collaborative behaviors local governmental sectors engaging in the impact their perceived outcomes is essential to understand how disastrous situations are addressed by collaborative efforts in emergency management. This research investigates diversified collaborative behaviors in emergency response and then examines this using a multi-dimensional model consisting of joint decision making, joint implementation, compromised autonomy, resource sharing, and trust building. We surveyed 148 local governments and their affiliated sectors in China in-depth understanding how collaborative processes contribute to perceived outcomes from perspectives of participating sectors in the context of a centralized political-administrative system. A structural equation model (SEM) is employed to encode multiple dimensions of the collaborative process, perceived outcomes, as well as their relationships. The empirical finding indicates that joint decision making and implementation positively affect the perceived outcomes significantly. The empirical results indicate that joint decision making and joint implementation affect perceived outcomes significantly. Instead, resource sharing and trust building do not affect the outcomes positively as expected. Additionally, compromised autonomy negatively affects the collaborative outcomes. We also discuss the institutional advantages for achieving successful outcomes in emergency management in China by reducing the degree of compromised autonomy. Our findings provide insight that can improve efforts to build and maintain a collaborative process to respond to emergencies.