Did You Receive What We Provided? A Study of the Coevolving Resource Networks after a Technological Disaster

• In Event: Top Papers in Organizational Communication

Abstract

When an extreme event happens, important questions are often asked: whether the resources received by the affected communities match what the supportive individuals and organizations believe what they have provided and in what ways, and how suppliers themselves receive resource for the operations. To answer these questions, this study draws on the ecological and evolutionary perspective to examine the evolving and co-evolving resource relationships between affected communities and response organizations after an incident of gas explosions that occurred in Taiwan in August 2014. Data were collected from interviews with the affected communities and a survey with response organizations. Findings of the study suggest the existence of a few central resource contacts identified in both of the response organizations’ resource provision network and the affected communities’ resource receipt network. Mutual resource dependence was observed as response organizations’ receipt of resources from the affected communities and other entities influenced their delivery of support albeit with varying effects in later phases of disaster response. Moreover, the change of the network structures in both populations of resource provision and resource receipts over time reflected the evolution of the overall disaster response community. Discussion is presented as to the findings’ implications for organized behavior in the disaster context through the lens of community ecology and community resilience.

Authors

• Chih-Hui Lai, National Chiao Tung University

• Chen-Chao Tao, National Chiao Tung U

• Yu-Chung Cheng, Hsuan Chuang U