Organizational Characteristics of A Disaster Call Center ;\ Study of Information Management

Abstract

This study examines how information was managed in a call center during the response to a major flood event on the Red River in the upper Midwest. The event affected the cities of Fargo, North Dakota and Moorhead, Minnesota. This study involved two rounds of data collection: first, complete participant observation in the call center, and second, in-depth qualitative interviews of call center workers. It also includes a I 9-clay reconstruction of the flood event based on newspaper articks during the incident. The results of this study arc examined within the context of complex systems theory and other theoretical concepts within the scope of information management in emergency management response systems. This study discusses the impact ol'rolc familiarity and the assumption of collective intelligence on the disaster call center's ability to manage infornrntion during the flood response operations.