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from responding to natural disasters to dealing with terrorism
and intentional man-made disasters. However, the massive
damages and losses caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 forced
the U.S. government to reconsider the necessity of an all-hazard
approach to deal with natural disasters. Today, governments at
all levels take responsibility for dealing with unplanned natural
disasters as well as intended and unintended man-made disasters.
III. The Necessity of Local Emergency
Management Collaboration
In general, collaboration can be viewed as a process of
facilitating and implementing multi-organizational arrange-
ments to solve problems that an organization on its own cannot
solve, or will have a difficult time solving. A purposive
relationship thus exists among these organizations (Agranoff &
McGuire, 2003). This study adopts Agranoff and McGuire’s
definition and collaboration is viewed as a process in which
multiple organizations or individuals work together to solve
complicated problems. In this process, organizations and
individuals share mutual goals, trust, and benefits and establish
long-term interdependent relationships. In the context of local
EM, collaboration is used to explain the situation in which local
governments create a long-term relationship with other public
agencies, private companies, or non-profit organizations to
efficiently and effectively respond to all kinds of emergencies
through sharing resources and risks.
EM studies have recognized and advocated the necessity of
establishing a network or collaborative approach that
emphasizes communication, coordination, resource-sharing,
and leadership among different levels of the governments and
cross-sector organizations (Comfort, 2002, 2007; Kapucu et al.,
2010; Schneider, 2011). Drabek (1985) addressed four
characteristics of the EM system in the U.S.: localism, lack of