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Analytics thrives in navigating emergency situations. Emergency operations management needs to develop analytics empowerment capability (ANEC) to prepare for uncertainty, support continuity and tackle any disruptions. However, there is limited knowledge on ANEC and its effects on strategic emergency service agility (SESA) and emergency service adaptation (ESAD) in such contexts. Drawing on the dynamic capability (DC) theory, we address this research gap by developing an ANEC model. We also model the effects of ANEC on SESA and ESAD using SESA as a mediator. We also assess the moderating and quadratic effects of ANEC on two higher-order DCs (i.e. SESA and ESAD).

Drawing on the literature on big data, empowerment and DC, we develop and validate an ANEC model using data from 245 service systems managers in Australia. The study uses the partial least squares-based structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to prove the research model. The predictive power of the research model is validated through PLSpredict (k = 10) using a training sample (n = 220) and a holdout sample (n = 25).

The findings show that analytics climate, technological enablement, information access, knowledge and skills, training and development and decision-making ability are the significant components of ANEC. The findings confirm strategic emergency service agility as a significant partial mediator between ANEC and emergency service adaptation. The findings also discuss the moderating and quadratic effects of ANEC on outcome constructs. We discuss the implications of our findings for emergency situations with limitations and future research directions.

The findings show that building ANEC plays a fundamental role in developing strategic agility and service adaptation in emergency situations to prepare for disruptions, mitigate risks and continue operations.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that influence enterprise resource planning (ERP) effectiveness within the context of emergency service organizations. Drawing on information systems (IS) effectiveness, ERP implementation and job satisfaction literature, the authors posit that user involvement, top management involvement and training satisfaction are the antecedents to perceived job satisfaction, and perceived job satisfaction leads to ERP effectiveness in emergency service organizations.

Survey methodology is used for collecting data for this research, and the PLS-SEM technique is used for analysis.

Results indicate users will be more satisfied with their training if their inputs are taken into account during their training and the top management is actively involved during the training process. Further, if the users perceive that they are adequately trained, they will be more satisfied with their jobs in using ERP, which will also lead to more effective ERP usage in emergency service operations.

The focus of this study is on a single emergency service organization and thus may not be generalizable to other sectors. The authors extend ERP research to the context of emergency service organizations and thus add to the literature on ERP and emergency services. They conceptualize perceived job satisfaction to integrate roles, teamwork, supervisor and their perception regarding their potential to grow in the organization.

The managerial contribution of this research is to identify the motivational aspects and provide practical insights into the effective use of ERP systems for emergency service organizations. From a managerial perspective, the study provides a framework for both IS and emergency service providers/executives to understand and evaluate the factors that help them use ERP effectively in their firms.

This study extends the knowledge of ERP systems. While most of the ERP research focuses on implementation, the authors’ focus is on the effective use of ERP in emergency service organizations. They focus on identifying key factors that are important to using ERP effectively, specifically in emergency service organizations.

Emergency contracting has risen to the fore in both interest and importance in the US since September 11, 2001 (9/11). Most recently, the US government's response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita piqued the interest of both the Executive and Legislative branches of the US government and their respective oversight bodies. This paper briefly reviews the literature of emergency contracting with special focus on the statutory and regulatory framework for emergency contracting, identifies some contracting solutions established by the US government to deal more effectively with emergency contracting, and pinpoints some problems faced by emergency contracting agencies and anomalies of their emergency contracting practices.

In emergency services, maximizing population coverage with the lowest cost at the peak of the demand is important. In addition, due to the nature of services in emergency centers, including hospitals, the number of servers and beds is actually considered as the capacity of the system. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to propose a multi-objective maximal covering facility location model for emergency service centers within an M _(t)/M/m/m queuing system considering different levels of service and periodic demand rate.

The process of serving patients is modeled according to queuing theory and mathematical programming. To cope with multi-objectiveness of the proposed model, an augmented ε-constraint method has been used within GAMS software. Since the computational time ascends exponentially as the problem size increases, the GAMS software is not able to solve large-scale problems. Thus, a NSGA-II algorithm has been proposed to solve this category of problems and results have been compared with GAMS through random generated sample problems. In addition, the applicability of the proposed model in real situations has been examined within a case study in Iran.

Results obtained from the random generated sample problems illustrated while both the GAMS software and NSGA-II almost share the same quality of solution, the CPU execution time of the proposed NSGA-II algorithm is lower than GAMS significantly. Furthermore, the results of solving the model for case study approve that the model is able to determine the location of the required facilities and allocate demand areas to them appropriately.

In the most of previous works on emergency services, maximal coverage with the minimum cost were the main objectives. Hereby, it seems that minimizing the number of waiting patients for receiving services have been neglected. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first time that a maximal covering problem is formulated within an M _(t)/M/m/m queuing system. This novel formulation will lead to more satisfaction for injured people by minimizing the average number of injured people who are waiting in the queue for receiving services.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the issues and challenges in humanitarian logistics and to develop a framework for effectively managing the humanitarian logistics in disaster relief supply chain operations in India.

This paper presents a framework to manage humanitarian logistics effectively in disaster management through qualitative analysis. First, the author examines the challenges facing the humanitarian logistics and supply chain through the reviews of the literature on various disasters. Then, the author presented a framework based on the best practices and initiatives taken worldwide in the preparedness and response stage of the humanitarian supply chain to manage and reduce the aftermath of any disaster in context to India.

A framework has been developed to manage humanitarian logistics in the disaster relief operation, which would improve the humanitarian supply chain in India and help to effectively manage natural disasters in the preparedness and response stage at the state and district levels.

The paper mainly emphasises on the preparedness and response stage of disaster supply chain management in Indian context.

None of the disaster incidents can be stopped from taking place, but the impact can be minimised by proper preparedness and effective response during the operations of humanitarian logistics. With this hope, the framework has been developed, which if implemented would help to plan and manage any disaster incident in an effective manner, which ultimately would save millions of lives and cost in terms of infrastructure, property, assets etc.

As natural disaster incidents are occurring frequently in Indian states, there is an urgent need for a framework to manage the logistics operations effectively and efficiently during any disaster relief operations. Limited literature is found on developing and presenting a framework focusing on the preparedness and response phase of disaster supply chain management in context to India. Hence, this paper is believed to be the first to fulfil this gap with main emphasis on the preparedness and response stage of disaster supply chain management in Indian scenario.

In the USA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) provides support to State and local governments in fulfilment of their responsibilities for preparedness, response, recovery and mitigation of disasters. One method FEMA has used to support State and local emergency communication functions was to sign and implement a Memorandum of Understanding with the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) for amateur radio operators to provide electronic communications for State and local governments in disasters. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has licensed more than 600,000 amateur radio operators in the USA. The national organization of amateur radio operators called the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) was formed in 1914. More than 80,000 of these amateurs have registered their availability for emergency communications in disasters in the ARRL’s Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES). Amateur radio operators have been providing communications in natural disasters such as floods, hurricanes and earthquakes since 1910. Since amateur radio operation was prohibited during the years of both World Wars I and II, FEMA has sponsored a new branch of the amateur service called Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES). RACES operators are authorized to operate if the President invokes his War Emergency Powers while all other amateur operation would be silenced. Examines the role of amateur radio in providing emergency electronic communications for disaster management and explores future contributions.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the past events where communication challenges have occurred during a disaster, and events in which amateur radio had played a vital role in creating reliable communication links during the disaster response. Furthermore, this paper identifies the modern technology available with amateur radio operators that can be used to create reliable communication networks in order to meet the high demand of disaster communication.

In this paper the author has conducted an integrative literature review, while analyzing case studies of disasters where communication challenges have occurred and the amateur radio has provided communication support during a disaster response.

In today’s world there is a heavy reliance on centralized communications infrastructure such as cell towers, which are very likely to fail during a disaster. Failure or overload of such infrastructure will cause disruptions in communications and make the disaster response inefficient. Amateur radio does not rely on centralized communications infrastructure, and has the ability to be used to meet the demand during many disaster situations. Thus, it is very important for emergency professionals to understand the value of including amateur radio operators in emergency operations plans.

Research is qualitative in nature, with an aim to write a short paper introducing the issues of Disaster Communications.

This paper is intended to provide an insight about the importance of reliable communications during a disaster. Communication interruptions can create a lot of problems and cause inadequate coordination between response agencies. In order to mitigate such challenges it is crucial to study the vital role of amateur radio in supporting the communications when all other mediums of communication fail.

Tucson, Arizona, experienced two large‐scale floods in October 1983 and January 1993. In comparing these floods, examines both the natural events and the response of public safety organizations. A summary of the natural events compares the weather, flooding and damages. In consideration of the human response to the 1983 event, finds that the community′s emergency co‐ordination centre was ineffective and isolated from the public safety response network. Furthermore, an organizational structure, suited to the management of large‐scale, multi‐organizational response, failed to emerge. Concludes that local government mitigated these deficiencies before the January 1993 flood. This was accomplished in two ways. First, the community′s emergency management agency merged into the Sheriff′s Department and second, through consensus building and training, the community institutionalized an effective disaster response organizational structure.

This paper aims to develop a conceptual model for future theory building and provides guidance to emergency managers by identifying important organizational factors influencing emergency response performance.

A conceptual framework is developed linking organizational characteristics and incident types to emergency response performance, focusing on the “prepare” and “respond” stages in emergency management. Archival data are used to test the framework, using ANOVA to analyze 12,057 incidents over a nine-year period.

The results indicate that organizational characteristics impact emergency response performance through Knowledge of Location. Several organizational factors impact Knowledge of Location, which then serves, with incident type, as a significant indicator for emergency response performance.

Researchers are constrained by the data collected in the database used for the study; however, the use of this commonly collected data to operationalize our variables for model testing facilitates analysis of other emergency management organizations for validation. Future model extension is possible by identifying other important variables.

The analysis emphasizes the importance of area familiarization training in improving emergency response as well as the impact of organizational structure changes on response. Emergency managers should ensure clear lines of authority and communication during times of change.

This is one of the few studies to use empirical data from a large-scale, real-world database to study emergency response performance. In contrast to previous modeling-based research, this study emphasizes organizational characteristics with an empirical perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a method of the bottleneck detection for Emergency Department (ED) improvement using benchmarking and design of experiments (DOE) in simulation model.

Four procedures of treatments are used to represent ED activities of the patient flow. Simulation modeling is applied as a cost-effective tool to analyze the ED operation. Benchmarking provides the achievable goal for the improvement. DOE speeds up the process of bottleneck search.

It is identified that the long waiting time is accumulated by previous arrival patients waiting for treatment in the ED. Comparing the processing time of each treatment procedure with the benchmark reveals that increasing the treatment time mainly happens in treatment in progress and emergency room holding (ERH) procedures. It also indicates that the to be admitted time caused by the transfer delay is a common case.

The current research is conducted in the ED only. Activities in the ERH require a close cooperation of several medical teams to complete patients’ condition evaluations. The current model may be extended to the related medical units to improve the model detail.

ED overcrowding is an increasingly significant public healthcare problem. Bottlenecks that affect ED overcrowding have to be detected to improve the patient flow.

Integration of benchmarking and DOE in simulation modeling proposed in this research shows the promise in time-saving for bottleneck detection of ED operations.