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government can also decide to join the EM
mutual aid program
and sign agreements to offer or receive structured assistance in
the event of a disaster (Cohn, 2005; Henstra, 2010; Patton,
2007). Recent studies have also reminded us that community
contextual factors must be taken into consideration when
studying the different levels of interlocal collaboration (e.g.,
social capital network-based collaboration) (Johnson et al.,
2015). At the county level, convergence of organizational goals,
utilization of information and communication technology, and
interorganizational trust also have significant effects on network
sustainability in EM (Kapucu et al., 2013).
C. Horizontal-Intersectoral Collaboration
Horizontal-intersectoral collaboration describes an
interaction across public and private sectors or across public and
non-profit sectors within policy networks. The interaction is
governed through contracts and formal agreements (Gazley,
2008; O’Leary, Gazley, McGuire, & Bingham, 2009) and may
entail sharing resources on a case-by-case basis. Such
interactions may often evolve into long-term partner
relationships where all participant organizations make symbolic
or substantial contributions and share responsibility for the
outcomes to produce more favorable results and solutions
(O’Leary et al., 2009). Bryson and Crosby (2008) further
defined cross-sector collaboration as “the linking or sharing of
information, goodwill, and good intensions; resources; activities,
and power or capabilities by organizations in two or more
sectors to achieve jointly an outcome that could not be achieved
by organizations in one sector separately.” Their definition
implies that by engaging in cross-sector collaboration, endeavors
that would have otherwise ended in failure (if an organization
were working alone) will end in success. Moreover, the success
of cross-sector collaboration relies on the capabilities of each