Building an emergency management organisation after a disaster. Evidence from Italy

The paper‟s overall aim is to provide knowledge on the importance of leadership as a strategic factor in solving complexity and governing emergency after a critical circumstance such as refugee flows. Emergency events or big public crises are often the typical setting for collaboration among governmental organizations or between public and private institutions and, thus, a flourishing field of organizational research: which integrating mechanisms make different agencies both public and private work effectively together in emergency setting is still an open question. According to a recent study on crisis management within public sector (Trinchero et al. 2019), network is emerging as an hybrid organizational form able to better address emerging and sustained crisis (e.g., Robinson et al. 2011; Wimelius and Engberg, 2015; Berthod et al. 2016): inter-institutional networks are more effective than traditional bureaucracies or mono-institutional responses, because they ensure flexibility in response (Meehan, 2007) and fluidity of members participation (Robinson et al. 2011). On the other hand, administrative barriers can reduce the willingness to join or build up network arrangements (Eikenberry, Arroyave and Cooper, 2007). This argument is consistent with the typical bureaucratic nature of public organizations. These considerations inspire the following research question: RQ1 – What are the enabling factors that increase collaborative practices in emergency situations? This research is based on a single case study and will offer a contribution to the international debate by presenting an empirical case which tells about a successful model of organisation that has been functional to manage emergency and complexity resulting from the landing of about 1,000 refugees on the Bari‟s in July 2017. The model, which has leveraged on theories of leadership, collaborative and organisational governance, can contribute with new perspectives on emergency management, thus, offering new instruments for implementing strategies of recovery. The conceptual framework of this paper lays the groundwork to provide operational guidance for public organisations, managers and administrations involved in refugee and migration management and emergency management communities.