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training, conferences, workshops, exercises, and drills.
Governments at all levels, on the one hand, should encourage
EM public officials to participate in these activities to
accumulate their social capitals, improve their mutual
understanding, and strengthen their formal and informal
networks. On the other hand, both central and local
governments in Taiwan should consider how to systematically
provide EM training programs and diverse EM exercises and
drills to provide a platform for information-exchanging,
relationship-building, and knowledge-sharing among EM public
officials.
Third, professional capability and collaborative leadership
of local emergency mangers are crucial for strengthening local
EM capacity and facilitating local EM collaboration.
Professionalized and experienced EM directors make
collaboration possible. Learning how to recruit and retain
professional and experienced emergency managers at all levels
of governments, and continuously increasing their competencies
in both technological and managerial areas are important issues
that central and local governments must address.
Fourth, although local EM collaboration is theoretically
viewed important and necessary, it is not easy to be fully
implemented in the real world. Taiwan’s central government is
suggested to motivate local governments to collaborate with all
actual or potential public, private, and nonprofit partners
vertically and horizontally through diverse policy tools.
Nonetheless, regardless of the types of policy tools that central
government applies to stimulate collaboration, it must listen to
local voices and take community diversity into consideration.
In sum, this study tries to use local government managers’
perspectives to study why and how local governments
collaborate with non-governmental organizations and business
industries in local EM. Future research should include the views
from non-governmental organizations and business industries to