This study investigates the effects of interorganizational networking strategies on organizational resilience as a network outcome. Little research examines the impacts of network structure on the organizational outcomes in the public service delivery although individual organizations’ success is critical for the whole network. Using survey data collected in two South Korean metropolitan areas, this study tests the effects of bonding and bridging strategies on the resilience of public and nongovernmental organizations. The findings confirm the bonding effects and imply that local organizations need to work closely with local partners in the phase of hazard mitigation, which reduces the long-term risk of hazards, to improve organizational resilience.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand the effects of social media use on the resilience of organizations involved in emergency response. While social media has been utilized as a critical tool in the field of emergency management, few researchers have systemically examined its effect on organizations’ capacity to bounce back from catastrophic events. From the dimensional approach to social media use, this research focuses on the following three functions: providing information to local communities, transmitting information to local communities, and responding to the emotions of local communities.Design/methodology/approach: The authors used survey data gleaned from 79 key organizations involved in emergency management to investigate the impact of social media use on resilience after a tragic flood in Seoul, South Korea in 2013. The authors also conducted interviews with ten emergency management officials to understand what administrative challenges they confront in using social media for their tasks.Findings: The authors found that the provision of disaster information on social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube has a positive effect on the perceived level of organizational resilience. In addition, social media use correlates positively with community emotional responses.Research limitations/implications: Given the focus on the emergency response to a natural disaster in urban areas, the results might not be generalizable to smaller cities or rural areas. The survey items that measure the perceptions of emergency managers may not represent the physical aspects of disaster recovery, such as the restoration of housing stock.Practical implications: The findings suggest that public and nonprofit organizations can use social media to communicate with other organizations and the public in ways that demonstrate resilience. Emergency managers should address administrative challenges, such as trustworthiness of information delivered via social media and lack of personnel.Originality/value: This paper provides systematic understandings of the effects of social media use on the resilience of the organizations that respond to a disaster.

Following the 2015 Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak in South Korea, this research aims to examine the structural effect of public health network explaining collaboration effectiveness, which is defined as joint efforts to improve quality of service provision, cost savings, and coordination. We tested the bonding and bridging effects on collaboration effectiveness during the MERS outbreak response by utilizing an institutional collective action framework. The analysis results of 114 organizations responding during the crisis show a significant association between the bonding effect and the effectiveness of collaboration, as well as a positive association between risk communication in disseminating public health information and the effectiveness of collaboration.

Although local emergency management agencies are increasingly using various technologies to improve disaster management, little research provides an understanding of the linkages between Information and Communication Technology (ICT) use and independent IT departments. Using a survey of local emergency managers in the United States of America, this study focuses on the relationship between the presence of an independent IT department within an emergency management agency and their adoption of three types of ICTs – emergency operations, risk communication, and social media technologies. The findings indicate that emergency management agencies are more likely to use all three types of ICTs when an independent IT department exists in-house. On the other hand, challenges of the ever changing ICTs are alleviated when there is no designated IT department. Implications for practice with regards to reducing barriers to ICT use for emergency management are discussed.