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The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to identify occupational groups who can act as semi-professional first responders, in order to shorten the response times to frequent emergencies, and second, to identify related opportunities, challenges and needs of training, emergency supplies and information technology (IT) support.

A case study approach was taken, combining future workshops, focus groups and an exercise. Network governance was used as an analytical lens.

The identified potential groups are security guards, home care personnel, fire services day personnel and facility service personnel. The results show that semi-professionals have a large potential to complement professional resources by carrying out first response or supportive actions vital to the emergency, partly by using already existing cars and equipment. The identified needs include additional basic equipment such as fire extinguishers and first-aid kits, training in basic firefighting, first aid and risk assessment, as well as mobile phone application-based IT support to manage alarms. The major challenges are organisational, economic and juridical, including ambiguities in responsibilities and related insurances. The analysis recognises the new collaboration as a hybrid form of hierarchical government and network governance.

The study suggests that using semi-professional resources can be one of many innovative solutions to recent public sector challenges that have put a huge strain on professional emergency response organisations.

The study provides a novel view of using semi-professional resources in emergency response, based on the joint perspectives of various occupational groups, and the fire services.

This study aims to explore recent public sector trends, inter-organizational and cross-sector collaborations, and analyzes these in terms of implications for participative development of information systems (IS). These trends are understood as being part of emerging forms of e-government. Initial suggestions for how to develop IS in the new contexts are provided.

Three cases involving the trends described above, taking place in the Swedish emergency response system, are studied and used as basis for identified participative IS development challenges and suggested adaptation needs. Data collection involves semi-structured interviews, focus groups and future workshops.

The identified challenges concern balancing ideological versus practical needs, lack of resources, lack of know-how and design techniques and tool challenges. Some practical implications for participative IS development include more extensive focus on stakeholder and legal analysis, need for interdisciplinary design teams, merging of task and needs analysis for yet-undefined user tasks and using on-line alternatives for interacting with users.

The study is exploratory where the three cases are in different, but at the same time interrelated, collaboration contexts. The identified implications and challenges provide proposals that in future research can be applied, formalized and integrated when developing practically feasible participative IS development approaches.

It is argued that the results point toward a current emerging form of e-government initiatives directed toward certain demarcated groups of citizens actually carrying out certain tasks for their co-citizens and society rather than the broad masses, having far-reaching practical implications and complicating the issue of IS development.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the development, implementation and initial evaluation of the Geriatric Flying Squad's reciprocal referral pathways with emergency responders including New South Wales Ambulance, Police and Fire and Rescue. These innovative pathways and model of care were developed to improve access to multidisciplinary services for vulnerable community dwelling frail older people with the intent of improving health and quality of life outcomes by providing an alternative to hospital admission.

This is a case study describing the review of the Geriatric Flying Squad's referral database and quality improvement initiative to streamline referrals amongst the various emergency responders in the local health district. The implementation and initial evaluation of the project through online survey are further described.

Sustainable cross-sector collaboration can be achieved through building reciprocal pathways between an existing rapid response geriatric outreach service and emergency responders including Ambulance, Police, Fire and Rescue. Historically, emergency services would have transferred this group to the emergency department. These pathways exemplify person-centred care, underpinned by a multidisciplinary, rapid response team, providing an alternative referral pathway for first responders, with the aim of improving whole of health outcomes for frail older people.

Enablers of these pathways include a single point of contact for agencies, extended hours to support referral pathways, education to increase capacity and awareness, comprehensive and timely comprehensive assessment and ongoing case management where required and contemporaneous cross-sector collaboration to meet the medical and psychosocial needs of the client.

The Geriatric Flying Squad reciprocal pathways are a unique model of care with a multi-agency approach to addressing frail older people's whole of health needs.

The increasing risk of natural disasters is challenging humanitarian actors to create resilient disaster management systems. However, the role of the private sector in disaster management operations (DMOs) is not as prominent as the role played by (inter)governmental agencies. This article aims to investigate the relationship of collaboration and resilience in disaster management supply networks (DMSNs).

Supply network resilience criteria were defined as robustness, flexibility, velocity and visibility based on the literature review. DMSN capabilities were identified characterising each resilience criterion through the development of the Collaboration–Resilience (COLRES) Analysis Framework for DMSNs. This theoretical model was then applied to an empirical case study in the Philippines using semi-structured interviews for data gathering.

A total of 46 cross-sector collaboration activities were identified across four disaster management phases and linked to the resilience criteria. A causal analysis of each collaboration activity and its outcome was conducted to identify relationships between collaboration types and resilience constructs. Based on these results, patterns were identified, and dependencies between collaboration and resilience were defined. Collective DMSN resilience (DMSNRES) enabled by existing cross-sector collaboration activities was evaluated against a future disaster scenario to identify resilience gaps. These gaps were used to recognise new cross-sector collaboration opportunities, thereby illustrating the continuous process of resilience building.

This research provides new insights on how private sector is involved within a DMOs through collaboration with the government and other NGOs. It augments existing literature on private sector involvement in DMOs where common perception is that the sector is only involved in short-term response and recovery activities. This study finds that the private sector can be operationally involved not just in post-disaster activities, but also in mitigation and preparation phases as well. This then sets a new baseline for further research on private sector involvement within DMOs. As this study provided a novel framework to analyse collaboration activities and its impact to DMSN resilience, future work could be done by applying the model to further cases such as other countries'. DMSNs, or to more specific contexts such as inter-organisational collaborations rather than big sectors. A more detailed assessment method against a future disaster will prove relevance for the model in providing practical insights on how resilience can be built in DMSNs.

This research proposed a novel DMSN collaboration-resilience (COLRES) model (Figure 11) to analyse existing processes in preparation for specific disasters. Practitioners may be able to use this model with the goal of identifying resilience gaps to fill and continuously improve their processes. The model also provides practitioners the lens to improve processes with the perspective on collaboration to complement government and NGO efforts and expertise with those of the private sector. For the private sector perspective, this research provides new insights on how they can be more involved with the community to provide more sustainable and long-term contributions to the society.

With disasters becoming more complex and frequent by the day and as humanitarian actors focus on improving their expertise, the need for every piece of the society to contribute to disaster risk reduction is continuously intensified. This research shows that each sector of the society can take part in disaster management operations to reduce unpredictability, lives impacted and increase speed of response and recovery. Each sector of the society can be of great contribution not only during post-disaster response and recovery but also during pre-disaster mitigation and preparedness phase. As such, this research echoes the call for everyone to be involved in disaster risk reduction and mitigation as a way of life.

This research ultimately finds that cross-sector collaboration builds resilience in DMSNs through capacity building, redundancy sourcing, information reliability and logistics responsiveness. This study shows that the private sector is able to go beyond existing short-term partnerships by participating in the 46 collaboration activities identified across four disaster management phases in order to build resilience in DMSNs.

Sustainably addressing the social and economic demands from an ageing population is a major global challenge, with significant implications for policy and practice. This is resultant of the increasing demand for housing adaptations to prevent increased pressure upon acute health services. Through the lens of institutional theory, this paper aims to explore the levels of joined-up retrofit practice within a Scottish social housing provider, under a constructivist approach.

An exploratory single case study of a Scottish local authority was undertaken. Within this, nine key stakeholders were interviewed, taking a hierarchical approach, from director to repair and maintenance staff. Results were analysed by using Braun and Clarke’s six stages of thematic analysis.

There is a need for greater levels of integration within retrofit practice to not only improve the health and well-being of the older population but also increase efficiency and economic savings within public services. Currently, there are key issues surrounding silo-based decision-making, poor data infrastructure, power struggles and a dereliction of built environment knowledge and expertise, preventing both internal and external collaboration. However, housing, energy and health have interlinking agendas which are integral to achieving ageing in place. Therefore, there must be system-wide recognition of the potential benefits of improved cross-sector collaboration, preventing unintended consequences whilst providing socioeconomic outcomes.

This research provides a new perspective surrounding retrofit practice within the context of an ageing population. It highlights the requirement for improved cross sector collaboration and the social and economic cost of poor quality practice.

This paper aims to investigate whether and how cross-sector partnerships (a growing yet controversial phenomenon) contribute to both non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and multinational companies (MNCs) political powers.

The method consists of a single case study on a partnership involving a large MNC and a small NGO, in the delivery of lighting and cooking devices to BoP (bottom of the pyramid) populations.

Thanks to economic compromises and structural arrangements, both partners succeed to take advantage of the partnership to strengthen their respective (local and transnational) political power and to serve deprived populations’ needs.

This paper contributes to the political corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature by presenting cross-sector partnerships as a potential means to reconcile the “brother enemies” and increase both firms’ and nonprofit organizations’ political roles.

The results help both NGOs and MNCs in understanding the political stakes of cross-sector partnerships and in envisioning mechanisms to handle those collaborations so as to deepen their respective goals and build public goods.

While most of the literature focuses on the strategic rationales, this paper provides political rationales for cross-sector partnerships linking MNCs and NGOs.

The paper is devoted to cross‐sector collaborative bonds appearing in Poland in the last years. The general purpose of the paper is to draw a picture of existing collaboration between NGOs and business organizations in Poland. Particularly, its purpose is to research the conditions and characteristics in which Polish profit and non‐profit organizations establish the collaborative bonds.

First, the paper introduces short description of social economy in Poland, presents corporate social responsibility as a possible framework for cross‐sector collaboration and shortly introduces different theoretical frameworks of inter‐organisational collaboration. It is of descriptive type and is only the first step to explore more deeply (in an analytical way) the area of collaboration. The reason is that this paper is the first of its kind in Poland.

The paper is conducted in 2008. The questionnaire available online is used. The invitation to participate in the research is sent directly by e‐mail to 830 organizations from the whole country (the level of feedback: 21.2 per cent). Thanks to the research, it is possible to draw a broad picture of NGOs – business cross‐sector collaboration.

The survey results allow an understanding of the nature of collaboration between two sectors may be helpful to other scientific researchers and to leaders of business and non‐governmental organizations to establish long‐lasting mutually beneficial relationships. This paper itself is the first step to trace and understand processes that arise in the area of collaboration between profit and non‐profit organizations in Poland.

This paper is the first of its kind in Poland and has to be descriptive and exploratory to allow future analysis and conceptualizations. Though there are many exhaustive research on the third sector in Poland, there is a lack of research where the collaboration with business partners is explored.

The purpose of this paper is to shed new light on the way the cross-sector collaboration (CSC) process can foster gender-focused sustainability initiatives to improve female workers’ conditions in developing countries. The study does so by introducing and examining the influence of nonprofit boundary work during the CSC process.

The paper is based on thirty-four interviews and qualitative fieldwork. It draws on a case analysis of a regional CSC between multiple organizations operating locally in the apparel industry of Bangladesh, a developing country.

Scaffolding work in the CSC formation stage – performed by development agency implementers who construe boundaries – and sensitization work in the CSC implementation stage – performed by a non-governmental organization (NGO) implementers who blur and expand boundaries – emerge as two conceptual categories of nonprofit boundary work. This allows NGO implementers to identify and enable the agency of sustainability envoys or socially privileged individuals who capitalize on their social credentials to support female workers in the factory and in the community.

The study offers novel insights into the CSC process. It contributes to the CSC literature and the literature on boundary work, with a focus on gender-focused sustainability initiatives for female workers in developing countries.

This study seeks to provide insights into corporate achievements in supply chain management (SCM) and logistics management and to detail how they might help disaster agencies. The authors aim to highlight and identify current practices, particularities, and challenges in disaster relief supply chains.

Both SCM and logistics management literature and examples drawn from real‐life cases inform the development of the theoretical model.

The theoretical, dual‐cycle model that focuses on the key missions of disaster relief agencies: first, prevention and planning and, second, response and recovery. Three major contributions are offered: a concise representation of current practices and particularities of disaster relief supply chains compared with commercial SCM; challenges and barriers to the development of more efficient SCM practices, classified into learning, strategising, and coordinating and measurement issues; and a simple, functional model for understanding how collaborations between corporations and disaster relief agencies might help relief agencies meet SCM challenges.

The study does not address culture‐clash related considerations. Rather than representing the entire scope of real‐life situations and practices, the analysis relies on key assumptions to help conceptualise collaborative paths.

The study provides specific insights into how corporations might help improve the SCM practices by disaster relief agencies that continue to function without SCM professional expertise, tools, or staff.

The paper shows that sharing supply chain and logistics expertise, technology, and infrastructure with relief agencies could be a way for corporations to demonstrate their good corporate citizenship. Collaborations between corporations and disaster agencies offer significant potential benefits.

This research investigates the perceived collaboration between public, private, and volunteer organisations during maritime crisis work, with an emphasis on learning and collaboration. The purpose of this paper is to investigate participants’ perceived collaboration training in relation to learning and usefulness.

The exercise studied in this research was run in the far North in Norway. It was estimated by the participants to be Europe’s most extensive exercise in 2016. Mixed methods research approach was applied, i.e. on-site observations, photos and interviews were conducted during the exercise. After the exercise, an online survey was distributed to emergency personnel holding different positions in conjunction with this exercise.

As reported, the exercise contributed to new insights on the relationship between collaboration and learning. The study showed that collaborative elements in exercises contribute to perceived learning (R=0.86, R²=0.74), and that learning in turn had a perceived beneficial effect on actual emergency work (R=0.79, R²=0.62).

The possible research implications from this study include more focus on collaboration and new training schemes that could increase learning and usefulness.

Collaboration between actors seemed to suffer from the size of the exercise. A smaller exercise, less dependency on predetermined scripts, and more receptivity towards improvisation could improve collaboration.

Increased awareness on the outcomes of collaboration exercise might increase their learning and usefulness, providing societies with improved rescue services.

This research implies that increased perceived collaboration has an effect on learning and usefulness in maritime exercises.