Emergency management policy: Predicting National Incident Management System (NIMS) implementation behavior

This doctoral dissertation study described and explained the perceived implementation behavior of counties in the United States with respect to the National Incident Management System (NIMS). The study addressed the following research questions: (1) What are the current NIMS implementation behaviors of counties in the United States? (2) What factors best predict implementation behaviors of counties in the United States? (3) What are the implications of the data for the NIMS as an organizing mechanism for the national emergency management system? Specifically, this study examined variables identified in the NIMS and policy implementation literature that might influence the behavioral intent and actual implementation behavior of counties.Data were collected in two phases: (1) an internet survey was sent to a national random sample of county emergency managers and, (2) a mail survey was sent to emergency managers in the sample that had not completed the internet survey. When data collection ceased, 355 randomly selected county emergency managers had participated in the study providing a nationally generalizable study.It was discovered that NIMS may be limited in its usefulness as the foundation for our nationwide emergency management system as well as for use in large-scale disaster situations because of the wide variation in how NIMS is currently being implemented in counties across the United States. This study also found that three factors limited or promoted both how counties intended to implement NIMS and how they actually implemented the system. An index variable comprised of the policy characteristics related to NIMS, an index variable comprised of implementer views, and local capacity (as measured by county perceptions of whether the county had enough personnel to implement NIMS) were all predictive of implementation behavior. An additional variable---an index comprised of inter-organizational characteristics---was found to influence actual NIMS implementation behavior but not intent. The study ultimately confirms what disaster research has long suggested---the potential for standardization in emergency management is limited.