A Call for Sensemaking Support Systems in Crisis Management

In this chapter, we explore four information processing challenges commonly experienced in crisis situations, which form the basis of the design of information systems that should support actors in these situations. When we explore the difference between Sensemaking and decision making, two activities that are undertaken to cope with information processing challenges, we can understand the two types of information systems support that are needed. The first type—decision support systems—supports actors in dealing with information-related problems of uncertainty and complexity, and is the traditional focus of information systems design. The second type—sensemaking support systems—should support actors in dealing with problems of frames of reference, ambiguity, and equivocality, but is not commonplace yet. We conducted three case studies in different crisis situations to explore these information processing challenges: A case study of the sudden crisis of an airplane crash in the Barents Rescue Exercise, a case study of the yearly recurring forest fires crises in Portugal, and a case study of the post-conflict European Union Police Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We discuss design premises for crisis management information systems and compare these to our findings, and observe that systems designed accordingly will provide for the necessary Sensemaking support.

[1]  D. Schoen,et al.  The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action , 1985 .

[2]  K. Weick ENACTED SENSEMAKING IN CRISIS SITUATIONS[1] , 1988 .

[3]  R. Hirschheim,et al.  Critical issues in information systems research , 1987 .

[4]  Dennis A. Gioia,et al.  Strategic sensemaking and organizational performance: linkages among scanning, interpretation, action, and outcomes. , 1993, Academy of Management journal. Academy of Management.

[5]  Richard L. Daft,et al.  Organizational information requirements, media richness and structural design , 1986 .

[6]  B. Van de Walle,et al.  Making Sense of Media Synchronicity in Humanitarian Crises , 2009, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication.

[7]  Johan P. Olsen,et al.  Ambiguity and choice in organizations , 1976 .

[8]  Karl E. Weick,et al.  Managing the Unexpected: Complexity as Distributed Sensemaking , 2005 .

[9]  Bartel Van de Walle,et al.  Decision support for emergency situations , 2008, Inf. Syst. E Bus. Manag..

[10]  Reuben R. McDaniel,et al.  Uncertainty and surprise in complex systems : questions working with the unexpected , 2005 .

[11]  M. Angrosino,et al.  Recontextualizing Observation: Ethnography, Pedagogy, and the Prospects for a Progressive Political Agenda. , 2005 .

[12]  Michael D. Myers,et al.  A Set of Principles for Conducting and Evaluating Interpretive Field Studies in Information Systems , 1999, MIS Q..

[13]  Geoff Walsham,et al.  Doing interpretive research , 2006, Eur. J. Inf. Syst..

[14]  Stewart L. Tubbs,et al.  Handbook of Organizational Communication. , 1988 .

[15]  Xiang Yao,et al.  The Design of a Dynamic Emergency Response Management Information System (DERMIS) , 2004 .

[16]  K. Weick FROM SENSEMAKING IN ORGANIZATIONS , 2021, The New Economic Sociology.

[17]  Frances J. Milliken,et al.  Executives’ Perceptual Filters: What They Notice and How They Make Sense , 1988 .

[18]  R. Daft,et al.  The information environments of organizations , 1987 .

[19]  Reijo Savolainen,et al.  Information use as gap-bridging: The viewpoint of sense-making methodology , 2006, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[20]  Bartel Van de Walle,et al.  Humanitarian Information Management and Systems , 2008, Mobile Response.

[21]  B. Van de Walle,et al.  Sensemaking and implications for information systems design: Findings from the Democratic Republic of Congo's ongoing crisis , 2008 .

[22]  N. Denzin,et al.  Handbook of Qualitative Research , 1994 .

[23]  David Lefkovitz The Information System , 1969 .

[24]  Michael H. Zack,et al.  The role of decision support systems in an indeterminate world , 2007, Decis. Support Syst..

[25]  Robert R. Hoffman,et al.  Expertise out of context : proceedings of the sixth International Conference on Naturalistic Decision Making , 2007 .

[26]  Paul Shrivastava,et al.  Crisis theory/practice: towards a sustainable future , 1993 .

[27]  Thomas H. Davenport,et al.  Book review:Working knowledge: How organizations manage what they know. Thomas H. Davenport and Laurence Prusak. Harvard Business School Press, 1998. $29.95US. ISBN 0‐87584‐655‐6 , 1998 .

[28]  M. Nathan How past becomes prologue: a sensemaking interpretation of the hindsight-foresight relationship given the circumstances of crisis , 2004 .

[29]  Jennifer K. Phillips,et al.  A Data–Frame Theory of Sensemaking , 2007 .

[30]  Thomas J. Housel,et al.  SIM Competition Paper: Information Systems for Crisis Management: Lessons from Southern California Edison , 1986, MIS Q..

[31]  Willem J. Muhren,et al.  Sensemaking and information management in humanitarian disaster response: Observations from the TRIPLEX exercise , 2009 .

[32]  F. Burstein,et al.  Handbook on Decision Support Systems 1 , 2008 .

[33]  Karl E. Keick Cosmos vs. chaos: Sense and nonsense in electronic contexts , 1985 .

[34]  Richard J. Boland,et al.  Decision Making and Sensemaking , 2008 .

[35]  B. A. van de Walle,et al.  Sensemaking as a methodology for ISCRAM research : Information processing in an ongoing crisis , 2008 .

[36]  M. Turoff,et al.  Session details: Emergency response information systems: emerging trends and technologies , 2007 .

[37]  D. Hambrick,et al.  Book Review: Human Resources, Personnel, and Organizational Behavior: The Executive Effect: Concepts and Methods for Studying Top Managers , 1990 .

[38]  R. Daft,et al.  A Tentative Exploration into the Amount and Equivocality of Information Processing in Organizational Work Units. , 1981 .

[39]  K. Weick The Collapse of Sensemaking in Organizations: The Mann Gulch Disaster , 1993 .

[40]  J. Valacich,et al.  Group Support Systems: New Perspectives , 1992 .

[41]  Wanda J. Orlikowski,et al.  Studying Information Technology in Organizations: Research Approaches and Assumptions , 1991, Inf. Syst. Res..

[42]  Donald A. Sch The reflective practitioner: how professionals think in action , 1983 .

[43]  Jonas Landgren,et al.  Supporting fire crew sensemaking enroute to incidents , 2005 .

[44]  John Sinclair,et al.  Collins concise dictionary , 2001 .

[45]  K. Weick Sensemaking as an Organizational Dimension of Global Change , 1999 .

[46]  J. Sundqvist,et al.  Information Sharing Models and Interoperability in National, Cross-Border and International Crisis Management , 2008 .

[47]  K. Weick,et al.  Organizing and the Process of Sensemaking , 2005 .

[48]  K. Weick Making Sense of the Organization , 2000 .