Information technology use and its effects on state emergency management organizations

The purpose of this research is threefold: (1) to identify how information technology (IT) has changed the way state emergency management (EM) organizations structure themselves and their employees' work; (2) to model the process used by agencies to introduce new information technology into their existing operations; (3) to identify the results state EM organizations have obtained from the use of information technology.; A case study methodology was used to allow for the full consideration of organizational context. A single longitudinal case with multiple retrospective cases was chosen as the design to improve the validity of the resulting observations and recommendations. Over 95 emergency managers from four state emergency management agencies were interviewed regarding their use of IT. A pilot study was conducted to verify the research protocol used to guide the interviews. All interviews were audio taped. The transcripts were ingested into Atlas/ti (a commonly used qualitative research tool) and coded. A comparative analysis was then performed on the data.; The results of the analysis indicate that while IT has drastically changed the way individuals accomplish their work, IT has produced only superficial changes to organizational structure. A five stage process is identified for technology introduction. The five stages are: Need, Adoption, Acceptance, Use, and Outcomes. Finally, the analysis results are generalized into eight theoretical constructs. It is hypothesized that these eight constructs limit an agency's ability to achieve results from IT. The constructs are: (1) Insufficient IT management resources. (2) Insufficient emphasis on IT training and education. (3) Insufficient awareness of the potential IT represents. (4) Insufficient system integration. (5) Insufficient information management. (6) Insufficient systemwide connectivity. (7) Insufficient documentation of key processes. (8) Reliance on unprogrammed or "found" money. These eight factors not only limited state agency results from IT investments, but limited a state agency's ability to participate in federal technology transfer and data sharing initiatives. The results presented here provide practical guidance to state emergency management agencies wanting to improve their utilization of IT and provide an empirical basis on which to build future research.