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Factors that contribute to trustworthiness across levels of authority in wildland fire incident management teams
Abstract
Wildland fire incident management teams (IMTs) require sustained and coordinated decision-making across levels of authority during dynamic and high-risk events. Trust between team members is important for maintaining the efficient flow of information and allowing team members to adapt to changing conditions, but models of trust in organizational psychology have overwhelmingly been used to describe routine teams in business settings. It is unclear whether these models accurately describe the factors that contribute to felt trust, i.e., the phenomenon of feeling trusted by someone. This is limiting as IMTs involve a strict hierarchy with team members acting as both supervisor and subordinate, who are simultaneously trusted by their own subordinates and supervisors. To explore the psychological antecedents of trust and felt trust, we interview 27 fire managers about the qualities they seek and believe are sought in trustworthy supervisors and subordinates. Results confirm the importance of ability and integrity for both supervisors and subordinates, but reveal that benevolence is more valued in supervisors and less valued in subordinates. Predictability and gender also play an important role in trustworthiness. Results suggest felt trust and trust are psychologically similar but not identical: in general, the factors respondents looked for in trustworthy supervisors they believed their subordinates looked for in them and vice versa. Results highlight key skills for trust in addition to operational or technical competence. Trustworthy team members need to communicate effectively and honestly. Supervisors should emphasize collaborative and inclusive decision-making with their direct reports and cultivate a servant-leader leadership style.
... (2) Good leaders are competent decision-makers, personally genuine displaying humility and benevolence, and act with integrity by being reliable, sticking to their word, and relaying information to their crews (Waldron et al., 2015). (3) Trust between fire managers serving on an incident is critical for team success and safe response (McLennan et al., 2006) and trustworthy team members display competence, integrity, and benevolence (Rapp & Wilson, 2022). Rapp and Wilson (2022) find that competence derives from operationally sound decisionmaking, integrity derives from honesty, humility, and accountability, and benevolence derives from sincere care and concern for other firefighters. ...
... (3) Trust between fire managers serving on an incident is critical for team success and safe response (McLennan et al., 2006) and trustworthy team members display competence, integrity, and benevolence (Rapp & Wilson, 2022). Rapp and Wilson (2022) find that competence derives from operationally sound decisionmaking, integrity derives from honesty, humility, and accountability, and benevolence derives from sincere care and concern for other firefighters. ...
One of the dominant ethics of natural resource management (NRM), and arguably Western culture, is consequentialism, which evaluates the ethical merit of decisions based solely on consequences or outcomes of those decisions. When used in NRM, this ethic is largely applied as the default, without interrogation of whether it is appropriate or useful. In this case study, we examine the intersections of consequentialism, decision psychology, and fire response in the United States. We explore how trying to maximize beneficial outcomes creates dilemmas for fire managers who must make decisions despite considerable risk and uncertainty about outcomes. Consequentialism as a guiding ethic may exacerbate risk aversion and fire suppression and ultimately contributes to a dilemma, wherein fire managers trying to reduce negative outcomes may increase the probability of negative outcomes (via catastrophic wildfire) in the long run. In place of consequentialism, we explore how virtue ethics in fire response and moral pluralism may ultimately better support the goals of risk management and positive outcomes. From this case study, readers will gain insight on the challenges of applying ethical theory to current natural resource issues, the way cognitive biases can affect decision-making, and alternative ethics to the dominant consequentialist system in NRM.
... Fire dynamics vary over time and with intervening factors, and each fire scene is different. In addition to technical skills, firefighters training to become IC-01s need supplementary education and should focus on improving "non-technical skills" [40]. This part of the training program includes sizing up, decision making, fire communication, teamwork, and leadership (National Fire Chiefs Council, NFCC) [41]. ...
... Fire dynamics vary over time and with intervening factors, and each fire scene is different. In addition to technical skills, firefighters training to become IC-01s need supplementary education and should focus on improving "nontechnical skills" [40]. This part of the training program includes sizing up, decision making, fire communication, teamwork, and leadership (National Fire Chiefs Council, NFCC) [41]. ...
In Taiwan, firefighters are responsible for transporting confirmed coronavirus cases to hospitals or epidemic prevention hotels. During the epidemic, in order to reduce the chance of cross-infection between the general public and the fire brigade, traditional collective mobilization training was limited. As a solution, this study combines a fire command course (C1) and a VR simulation for training fire station captains (VRST) and then applies the pre- and post-test evaluation approaches and the after-class questionnaire to summarize the learning effectiveness. The results show that, from a total of 244 captains that were trained, the after-training scores are significantly better when compared with the scores before training (p < 0.05, Cohen’s d > 0.8). Additionally, the post-test scores collected during the epidemic (n = 158) have no significant difference compared to the ones taken before the outbreak (2019, n = 86) in terms of sizing up, decision making, and safety management. The training results are still improving. The after-class questionnaire showed that most trainees believed that VRST helped to improve their confidence as incident commanders (ICs) (mean = 4.63, top box = 66.98%), with the novice and suburban groups exhibiting more significant improvements in command ability after the training. After the pandemic, VRST can continue as a regular training method for IC-01s. Because of the intervention of VRST, the differences in the command experience between different IC groups can be compensated for.
... Collaboration tools, such as cloud-based project management platforms, allow for seamless sharing of documents, schedules, and feedback, ensuring that everyone is on the same page despite geographic or disciplinary boundaries. Furthermore, leadership plays a pivotal role in fostering collaboration, as project managers and team leaders must demonstrate strong interpersonal skills and act as facilitators, helping to resolve conflicts and ensuring that every team member's voice is heard [23] . Coordination within teams is essential for ensuring that tasks are carried out efficiently and according to plan. ...
This paper explores integrated team management approaches in large-scale engineering projects located in high-risk construction zones. Such environments pose unique challenges, including environmental, safety, and logistical risks, that can significantly impact team performance and project outcomes. Through an in-depth analysis, the paper identifies key strategies for fostering effective communication, collaboration, and coordination among multidisciplinary teams, as well as the use of advanced technologies like Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Internet of Things (IoT) sensors to enhance project execution. The paper further examines leadership strategies that empower teams to make rapid, informed decisions and emphasizes the importance of continuous risk assessment and management in maintaining safety and ensuring project continuity. By analyzing past case studies, the paper offers valuable lessons on the importance of flexibility, adaptability, and community engagement in overcoming high-risk challenges. The future of integrated team management in high-risk zones will be shaped by technological advancements and a focus on sustainability. The paper concludes with recommendations for improving project management approaches, focusing on comprehensive risk assessment, continuous learning, and digital tool integration to optimize team performance and project success.
... Fire-fighting has been also described as framed by ageism, sexism and homophobia (Eriksen et al., 2016a,b). Also, Rapp and Wilson (2022) analyse how fire managers in the US described how 'the archetypal fire manager is tall, stoic, muscular, and male', and, by not fitting that physical appearance, women may not receive the same implicit trust and assumed competence as their male counterparts. A very concrete example that shows how women are not considered firefighting subjectsor that those who do are considered freaksis the fact that firefighters' uniforms are not adapted to non-male bodies, as revealed in McQuerry et al.'s case of the United States (McQuerry et al., 2023). ...
... Trust varies according to consumers' needs, expectations, attitudes, and experiences. In some situations, institutional trust prevails, while in other situations trust in individuals, leaders, suppliers, competencies, and relationships that occur between different levels of government (Bugdol, 2010;Rapp, Wilson, 2022). There are many different definitions of trust, and taking into account the OECD guidelines, trust can be viewed as a belief in the trustworthiness of other people, i.e. how others are likely to behave toward one another. ...
... This is evidenced, among other things, by the changes in consumer behavior, including decreased trust in the label information, observed during the pandemic (Latip et al., 2020;Sahin & Gun, 2023). A quantitative survey of 20,326 consumers across 18 countries coordinated by the TrustTracker® team and the results of the survey presented in The EIT Food Trust Report (2021) confirm that Polish consumers are more institutional/organizational trust prevails, while in others trust in individuals, leaders, suppliers, competencies, or the relationships that exist between different levels of authority is important (Lewicka et al., 2017;Rapp & Wilson, 2022;Truong et al., 2022;Erkutlu & Chafra, 2023). ...
Theoretical background: Trust plays an important role in market relations and is a valuable bridge between the consumer and the producer. Given the importance of food, trust in its safety certainly plays a key role. There are many determinants affecting food safety trust. Due to its growing role in society, Generation Z (Gen Z) and its views on the subject should be taken into account. All the more so because this generation is skeptical, cautious, and sensitive in economic, environmental, cognitive, and social terms. Purpose of the article: The objective of the study is to identify the determinants of trust in food safety among Polish students representing Gen Z consumers. A subsidiary objective is to identify whether trust in food safety is influenced by their socio-demographic and cognitive characteristics. Research methods: A face-to-face survey method was used and 374 respondents were participating in the study. The influence of twelve determinants on trust in food safety was assessed. Cronbach’s alpha statistics were used to assess the questionnaire scale’s reliability. The KMO index (Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin) and Bartlett’s test of sphericity were applied to know the appropriateness of performing factor analysis. To simplify and reduce the number of sources of confidence in food safety identified in the study, a factor analysis was conducted using the principal components method and Varimax rotation with Kaiser normalization. To find the relationship between sociodemographic variables and the studied variables multiple regression was applied. Statistical analyses were performed using IBM SPSS Statistics 29. Main findings: The reliability of the questionnaire used in the study has been confirmed. We distinguished three groups of determinants influencing food safety trust, and these are: “Place of food production and sale”, “The way of food production and supervision”, and “External socio-economic environment”. This type of classification can be considered our original contribution to the study, as well as the fact that among the individual determinants analyzed, we identified those with the highest importance in building food safety trust. These are the country of origin, the requirements of the country’s legal and market system as well as the activities of consumer and producer organizations. It was shown that socio-demographic and cognitive characteristics play a role in perceptions of product safety and in inducing trust in food safety.
This study has explored the potential role of institutional quality and social inclusion in trust building. By utilizing the panel data spanning over thirty five years and for one hundred and twenty four countries of the world, we have applied Fixed Effects as well as Quintile Regression Models to explore the empirical relationship of our interest. The findings reveal that social inclusion is an important and key factor in trust building. The effects of social inclusion on trust are robust as the coefficient of social inclusion is positive and significant across all of our estimated models. Institutional quality also has positive and significant effects on trust building except at medial level of distribution of trust where it has positive but insignificant effect on trust. Income inequality has negative and significant effects whereas the effects of ethnolinguistic diversity on trust are contextual specific as these effects vary across different quintiles of trust distribution. Diversity has negative and significant effects on trust at 10th percentile and positive and significant effects at 90th percentile of trust distribution. Our findings are important for policymakers who can formulate strategies to foster inclusive environment which can be conducive to enhance trust in the society.
Every year, incident management teams (IMTs) coordinate the response to hundreds of emergency events across Australasia. Larger scale emergencies such as a storms, floods, wildfires, oil spills and chemical explosions can place a lot of pressure on an IMT. Non-technical skills play a central role in the performance of these teams. This article reviewed the broader non-technical skills (NTS) literature before focusing on the NTS required for emergency management. It was found that most NTS frame-works share four to five common skill categories, although there were greater differences at the element and behavioural marker level. A variety of issues were identified in the literature that highlight that emergency management is very different from other domains where NTS systems have been developed. The literature on NTS in conjunction with this set of issues was used to develop a proposed NTS framework for emergency IMTs. This framework comprises 7 skill categories (i.e. communication, coordination, cooperation, decision-making, situation awareness, leadership and coping, stress and fatigue management). The 7 skills can be further delineated into 16 elements and 44 behavioural markers. The framework provides a prototype that can form the basis for further research in this area.
In the United States, many decision support tools exist to provide fire managers with weather and fire behaviour information to inform and facilitate risk-based decision-making. Relatively little is known about how managers use these tools in the field and when and how they may serve to influence decisions. To address this gap, we conducted exploratory interviews with 27 wildfire management and fire weather professionals across the United States. Results reveal that barriers to the use of decision support tools are structural and social. Specifically, fire weather and behaviour models may not generate reliable output and managers may not use the information they provide, but technical specialists on incident management teams (IMTs) play an active role in trying to overcome these barriers through their technical expertise and their relationships with other members of the IMT. Although researchers suggest tools such as the Wildland Fire Decision Support System (WFDSS) inform broad, strategic decision-making for line officers and IMTs, our results suggest fire weather and behaviour models are also important for communication and strategic or tactical planning within the IMT, especially for operations. We find that ultimately, managers may make use of fire weather and behaviour models, but they do not dictate decisions.
The increasing complexity of wildland fire management highlights the importance of sound decision making. Numerous fire management decision support systems (FMDSS) are designed to enhance science and technology delivery or assist fire managers with decision-making tasks. However, few scientific efforts have explored the adoption and use of FMDSS by fire managers. This research couples existing decision support system research and in-depth interviews with US Forest Service fire managers to explore perspectives surrounding the Wildland Fire Decision Support System (WFDSS). Results indicate that fire managers appreciate many WFDSS components but view it primarily as a means to document fire management decisions. They describe on-the-ground actions that can be disconnected with decisions developed in WFDSS, which they attribute to the timeliness of WFDSS outputs, the complexity of the WFDSS design, and how it was introduced to managers. We conclude by discussing how FMDSS development could address concerns raised by managers.
Research has long emphasized that being trusted is a central concern for leaders (Dirks & Ferrin, 2002), but an interesting and important question left unexplored is whether leaders feel trusted by each employee, and whether their felt trust is accurate. Across 2 field studies, we examined the factors that shape the accuracy of leaders' felt trust-or, their trust meta-accuracy-and the implications of trust meta-accuracy for the degree of relationship conflict between leaders and their employees. By integrating research on trust and interpersonal perception, we developed and tested hypotheses based on 2 theoretical mechanisms-an external signaling mechanism and an internal presumed reciprocity mechanism-that theory suggests shape leaders' trust meta-accuracy. In contrast to the existing literature on felt trust, our results reveal that leader trust meta-accuracy is shaped by an internal mechanism and the presumed reciprocity of trust relationships. We further find that whether trust meta-accuracy is associated with positive relational outcomes for leaders depends upon the level of an employee's actual trust in the leader. Our research contributes to burgeoning interest in felt trust by elucidating the mechanisms underlying trust meta-accuracy and suggesting practical directions for leaders who seek to accurately understand how much their employees trust them. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
Previous organizational research on trust has focused more on subordinates’ trust in their leaders than on their experience of felt trust from the leader, even though the latter is also an important component of trust relationships. Our paper addresses a recent call for more theoretical explanations of the mechanism through which followers’ felt trust influences their in-role and extra-role performance. Based on social cognitive theory, we proposed that occupational self-efficacy (OSE) mediates the felt trust-performance relationship in workplace settings, and tested these relationships in two empirical studies. Study 1 was a cross-sectional pre-study (N = 189) investigating only the mediating effects of OSE. For the main study, i.e., Study 2 (N = 500), we collected data at three different measurement occasions to minimize response bias. Study 2 investigated the mediation of the felt trust-performance relationship not only by OSE, but also by an additional mediator variable (organization-based self-esteem) that had been identified in previous studies, in order to determine whether the OSE effects remained significant. In both studies, structural equation modelling results supported the proposed mediating effects of OSE on the three performance outcomes for the reliance component of felt trust, but not for the disclosure component of felt trust.
Do we really need personal meetings to develop trust within teams? Which factors impact trust emergence within face-to-face and virtual teams? How do high-trust teams interact compared with teams with low team trust? Trust is seen as an important predictor of behavior in teams. However, the psychological mechanisms linking team trust to both its antecedents and its behavioral consequences are not well understood. The present study introduces a new taxonomy of team trust mechanisms by integrating results from a qualitative interview study with prior theoretical and empirical research on team trust. We conducted exploratory interviews based on the critical incident technique with 55 professionals who had substantial teamwork experience. Altogether, 776 behavioral items were collected stemming from 127 team events that were perceived as critical
This aim of this study was to develop and assess the viability of a leadership scale that measures leadership from the perspective of the leader. A criterion sample was used of firefighters across USA federal land management agencies who are qualified crew bosses. The Supervisor Perceived Leadership Scale (SPLS) consists of perceptions of items that have measured the most essential leadership skills – competent decision making, integrity and personal genuineness from the perspective of the subordinate in the previously developed Crewmember Perceived Leadership Scale (CPLS). Through confirmatory factor analysis, an 18-item, 2-factor structure was supported. However, the items that did not load were highly related and loaded well on the CPLS. The SPLS had a low to moderate relationship with authentic leadership and global competence. The gap between the SPLS and CPLS provides insight about the potential differences between the average fire leader and the exceptional fire leader. These results and implications for future research are discussed.
Managing wildland fire is an exercise in risk perception, sensemaking and resilient
performance. Risk perception begins with individual size up of a wildfire to determine a
course of action, and then becomes collective as the fire management team builds and
continuously updates their common perception of risk. Karl Weick has called this
“sensemaking.” This act of communication, of collecting and selecting information,
naming it, and passing it on, in various forms and stages of completeness, from one
individual or team to another – determines how resilient and effective the team’s
performance is. Because all subsequent actions rely on this, the sensemaking involved
with risk perception is a critical activity. It is hard work and prone to error, as numerous
accident reviews, in the U. S. and abroad, have found. Although advances are being made
in the structure of current reviews – such as by including human factors analyses, which
helpfully focus on psychological factors (attention, fatigue, etc.) - resilient performance
also requires developing a collective perception of risk, and for this analysis of
communication and interaction is needed. It is time to take a close, structured look at
wildland fire incident communication and interaction processes.
We sought to identify areas of communication competencies and constraints that affect
the perception and communication of risk in wildland fire management. In doing so, we
develop- for the first time - a comprehensive and coordinated perspective on
communication, resulting in a set of insights into training, practice, and assessment to
support continuous improvement in risk perception, sensemaking, and resilient
performance.
Major emergencies are extreme team decision making environments. They are complex, dynamic, high-stakes and fast paced events, wherein successful resolution is contingent upon effective teamwork. Not only do emergency teams coordinate at the intrateam level (e.g., police team), but they are increasingly required to operate at the interteam level (e.g., police, fire and ambulance teams). This is in response to the desire for networked and cost-effective practice and due to the evolving nature of modern threats, such as extreme weather events and terrorist attacks, which require a multi- rather than single-agency response. Yet the capacity for interoperability between emergency teams is under researched and poorly understood. Much of the teamwork research is based on student-samples or in artificial lab settings, reducing the salient contextual demands of emergencies (e.g., high-stakes, meaningful risk). Furthermore, the minimal research that has been conducted has tended to provide broad descriptive accounts of challenges faced during emergencies, but failed to develop and test solutions. This article identifies what is known about emergency teams and highlights why it is an important and timely area for research. It will focus on the challenges and solutions to three areas of team processing: cooperation, coordination, and communication. Future research must have a solutions-focused approach. This can be oriented around areas: training, sociotechnical networks, and policies/procedural guidelines. Greater collaboration between academics and practitioners can grow knowledge in this domain, ensuring that interventions to improve emergency teamwork are both contextually grounded and empirically validated.
Significance
When houses are built close to forests or other types of natural vegetation, they pose two problems related to wildfires. First, there will be more wildfires due to human ignitions. Second, wildfires that occur will pose a greater risk to lives and homes, they will be hard to fight, and letting natural fires burn becomes impossible. We examined the number of houses that have been built since 1990 in the United States in or near natural vegetation, in an area known as the wildland-urban interface (WUI), and found that a large number of houses have been built there. Approximately one in three houses and one in ten hectares are now in the WUI. These WUI growth trends will exacerbate wildfire problems in the future.
The aim of the current study is to investigate the importance of monitoring and employee control for employees’ felt trust, as well as felt trust as a mediating variable between monitoring and control, intrinsic motivation and mastery. A random sample of 3015 Norwegian employees was analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling. Monitoring was negatively related to employees’ felt trust, while employees’ control over decisions was related to higher felt trust. In turn, felt trust was related to employees’ intrinsic motivation and experience of mastery. Felt trust also partially mediated the relationship between employee control and intrinsic motivation, employee control and mastery, and entirely mediated the relationship between monitoring and intrinsic motivation and monitoring and mastery. The findings highlight the importance of felt trust for theory related to the workplace: Our findings support that employees are less intrinsically motivated if they are monitored because they feel less trusted.
There is significant debate about the appropriate governance structure in a disaster response. Complex disasters exhibit both networked and hierarchical characteristics. One challenge in the field of disaster management is how to structure a response that reconciles the need for centralized coordination among varied responders while retaining flexibility to mutually adjust operations to quickly changing conditions. A key question with both practical and theoretical relevance is, “are there patterns of relationships that are more robust, efficient and effective?” Missing from the current literature is empirical evidence and theory building concerning what actual network structures and characteristics might be associated with effective incident response to complex disasters. In this article, we collected network cognition data from 25 elite, Type 1 Incident Commanders to construct an ideal-type theoretical social network of an effective incident response network. We then analyzed this model to identify a set of propositions concerning the network structure and governance of effective incident response relative to four key network capabilities: (a) rapid adaptation in response to changing conditions, (b) management of distributed information, (c) bilateral coordination, and (d) emergent collective action. Our data suggest that the structure is neither highly integrated nor rigidly centralized. Rather, it is best characterized as a moderate core–periphery structure. Greater theoretical clarity concerning the capabilities associated with this structure is critical for advancing both research and practice in network governance of complex disasters.
Incident Management Teams (IMTs) combat the toughest wildfires in the United States, contending with forces of nature as well as many stakeholders with different agendas. Prior literature on IMTs suggested roles and cognitive sensemaking as key elements for success, but the possible importance of emotional and social intelligence competencies in leadership has not been empirically explored. Sixty critical incidents from interviews of 15 incident commanders were analyzed for emotional and social intelligence competencies in incident management leadership. Seven competencies were found to significantly differentiate outstanding leaders from average leaders. Emotional self-control, adaptability, empathy, coach/mentor, and inspirational leadership significantly or near significantly differentiated the outstanding leaders. Five additional competencies appeared as threshold competencies: achievement orientation, organizational awareness, influence, conflict management, and teamwork. Implications for further research, training, and development are explored.
Characterising the impacts of wildland fire and fire suppression is critical information for fire management decision-making. Here, we focus on decisions related to the rare larger and longer-duration fire events, where the scope and scale of decision-making can be far broader than initial response efforts, and where determining and demonstrating efficiency of strategies and actions can be particularly troublesome. We organise our review around key decision factors such as context, complexity, alternatives, consequences and uncertainty, and for illustration contrast fire management in Andalusia, Spain, and Montana, USA. Two of the largest knowledge gaps relate to quantifying fire impacts to ecosystem services, and modelling relationships between fire management activities and avoided damages. The relative magnitude of these and other concerns varies with the complexity of the socioecological context in which fire management decisions are made. To conclude our review, we examine topics for future research, including expanded use of the economics toolkit to better characterise the productivity and effectiveness of suppression actions, integration of ecosystem modelling with economic principles, and stronger adoption of risk and decision analysis within fire management decision-making.
Organizational hierarchy is an inescapable aspect of many exemplary high reliability organizations (HROs). As organizations begin to adopt HRO theorizing to improve practice, it is increasingly important to explain how HRO principles—which assume the hallmarks of a flat hierarchy—can be understood and enacted in rigidly stratified organizations. We propose a preliminary theoretical model suggesting how various supervisor–subordinate and work group communication patterns and practices enable members to navigate hierarchy to achieve high reliability. We test the model using structural equation modeling on a sample of N = 574 U.S. wildland firefighters from three federal agencies. Results suggest how organizational members might overcome common hierarchy-based constraints to HRO through considering how leaders throughout a chain of command communicate to cultivate the necessary cross-level awareness of an operation, and ways in which supervisors, members, and groups might cultivate interactional cultures with respectful affect.
Emergency managers working at a strategic level play a pivotal role in managing operational needs as well the needs of political elites engaged in crisis management and meaning-making. Evaluating emergency performance has been widely regarded as problematic, in part because of various stakeholder interests and because it is so subjective. This paper explores the values of personnel working in emergency management at a strategic level as well as the conditions that limit their effectiveness as they attempt to align the needs of different stakeholders. The surveys and interviews conducted suggest that what constitutes success is both subjective and contested by different stakeholders. There is a need to establish a broader perspective on what constitutes success when evaluating emergency response.
Prior work shows western US forest wildfire activity increased abruptly in the mid-1980s. Large forest wildfires and areas burned in them have continued to increase over recent decades, with most of the increase in lightning-ignited fires. Northern US Rockies forests dominated early increases in wildfire activity, and still contributed 50% of the increase in large fires over the last decade. However, the percentage growth in wildfire activity in Pacific northwestern and southwestern US forests has rapidly increased over the last two decades. Wildfire numbers and burned area are also increasing in non-forest vegetation types. Wildfire activity appears strongly associated with warming and earlier spring snowmelt. Analysis of the drivers of forest wildfire sensitivity to changes in the timing of spring demonstrates that forests at elevations where the historical mean snow-free season ranged between two and four months, with relatively high cumulative warm-season actual evapotranspiration, have been most affected. Increases in large wildfires associated with earlier spring snowmelt scale exponentially with changes in moisture deficit, and moisture deficit changes can explain most of the spatial variability in forest wildfire regime response to the timing of spring.
This article is part of the themed issue ‘The interaction of fire and mankind’.
Many social science studies are based on coded in-depth semistructured interview transcripts. But researchers rarely report or discuss coding reliability in this work. Nor is there much literature on the subject for this type of data. This article presents a procedure for developing coding schemes for such data. It involves standardizing the units of text on which coders work and then improving the coding scheme’s discriminant capability (i.e., reducing coding errors) to an acceptable point as indicated by measures of either intercoder reliability or intercoder agreement. This approach is especially useful for situations where a single knowledgeable coder will code all the transcripts once the coding scheme has been established. This approach can also be used with other types of qualitative data and in other circumstances.
Cumulating evidence from 123 independent studies (N=8,452 teams), we meta-analytically examine the fundamental question of whether intrateam trust is systematically related to team performance, and the conditions under which it is particularly important. We propose and test a comprehensive framework encompassing seven contingency factors and four qualifiers of the trust-performance relationship. Our findings reveal a significant main effect confirming that intrateam trust is positively related to team performance. The moderator analyses indicate that the trust- performance relationship is contingent upon various forms of structural dependence among members (i.e., task interdependence, team virtuality, authority differentiation), referent of trust and performance objectivity. The qualifier analyses show that the positive trust-performance relationship holds across cognitive and affective dimensions of trust, across effectiveness and efficiency dimensions of team performance, and after controlling for team trust in leader and past team performance. The study contributes to the literature by: 1) integrating studies on trust in teams; 2) resolving mixed findings regarding the trust-performance relationship; and 3) helping to overcome scholarly skepticism regarding the direct effect of trust on team performance.
The aims of this research were to develop and test a scale used to measure leadership in wildland firefighting using two samples of USA wildland firefighters. The first collection of data occurred in the spring and early summer and consisted of an online survey. The second set of data was collected towards late summer and early fall (autumn). The second set of data was collected via hard-copy surveys that were mailed in by respondents who were recruited via email and in person at large wildland fires. Through confirmatory factor analyses, a three-factor, higher-order, multidimensional structure of leadership in wildland fire was supported. The Crewmember Perceived Leadership Scale consists of perceptions of competent decision-making, personal genuineness and integrity of supervisors as seen by their subordinates. Initial evidence of reliability and validity was supported during the first study of this research. Results from Study 1 indicate that higher rankings of fire leaders by their crewmembers was related to higher worker engagement and job satisfaction. The second study included an additional five items to rate fire leaders; the structure of the three leadership components was again supported. Implications for leadership development in wildland fire, future research and practice are discussed.
Extant trust research champions 3 different centers of action that determine perceptions of trust: the trustor (the individual rendering trust judgments), the trustee (the party being trusted), and the trustor-trustee dyad. We refer to the centers of action as loci of trust. Thus far, researchers have investigated determinants residing within each locus independently but have not concurrently investigated all 3 loci. Thus, the relative influence of each locus on perceptions of trust is unknown. Nor is it known how the influence of each locus changes with time. Where is the dominant locus of trust? And how does it change over time? We address these questions by examining the influence of trustors, trustees, and dyads on perceived ability, benevolence, and integrity. We find that trustor influence decreases over time while trustee and dyadic influences increase. We also find that the trustor is the dominant locus for perceived ability, benevolence, and integrity initially, but over time the trustee becomes the dominant locus for perceived ability and integrity. For perceived benevolence, the trustor remains the dominant driver over time. (PsycINFO Database Record
Many social science studies are based on coded in-depth semistructured interview transcripts. But researchers rarely report or discuss coding reliability in this work. Nor is there much literature on the subject for this type of data. This article presents a procedure for developing coding schemes for such data. It involves standardizing the units of text on which coders work and then improving the coding scheme's discriminant capability (i.e., reducing coding errors) to an acceptable point as indicated by measures of either intercoder reliability or intercoder agreement. This approach is especially useful for situations where a single knowledgeable coder will code all the transcripts once the coding scheme has been established. This approach can also be used with other types of qualitative data and in other circumstances.
Over the last two decades wildfire activity, damage, and management cost within the US have increased substantially. These increases have been associated with a number of factors including climate change and fuel accumulation due to a century of active fire suppression. The increased fire activity has occurred during a time of significant ex-urban development of the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) along with increased demand on water resources originating on forested landscapes. These increased demands have put substantial pressure on federal agencies charged with wildfire management to continue and expand the century old policy of aggressive wildfire suppression. However, aggressive wildfire suppression is one of the major factors that drive the increased extent, intensity, and damage associated with the small number of large wildfires that are unable to be suppressed. In this paper we discuss the positive feedback loops that lead to demands for increasing suppression response while simultaneously increasing wildfire risk in the future. Despite a wealth of scientific research that demonstrates the limitations of the current management paradigm pressure to maintain the existing system are well entrenched and driven by the existing social systems that have evolved under our current management practice. Interestingly, US federal wildland fire policy provides considerable discretion for managers to pursue a range of management objectives; however, societal expectations and existing management incentive structures result in policy implementation that is straining the resilience of fire adapted ecosystems and the communities that reside in and adjacent to them.
Despite recent theoretical advances, the pattern of trust development between coworkers has yet to receive focused longitudinal attention. Furthermore, current theory suggests that employees attend to an array of independent trust cues in any given situation but fails to identify which cues are important when. In a four-wave longitudinal field study, we demonstrate how new coworker intentions to engage in trust behaviors (reliance and disclosure) evolve during employee socialization and examine the trust cues that prime decisions to trust. We present a latent growth model of trust development that reveals, for the first time, that reliance and disclosure intentions in early work relationships develop in a positive, nonlinear pattern over time. Furthermore, the study indicates that propensity to trust has a statistically significant effect on the initial status of intention to rely on and disclose information to coworkers but not on changes in trust behavior over time. The multiwave design permits comprehensive assessment of the change in impact of different trust cues over time and demonstrates that the importance of certain cues varies depending primarily on the type of trust in question and potentially changes as a relationship matures. We discuss the theoretical implications and directions for future research.
Emergency situations are by their nature difficult to manage and success in such situations is often highly dependent on effective team coordination. Breakdowns in team coordination can lead to significant disruption to an operational response. Breakdowns in coordination were explored in three large-scale bushfires in Australia: the Kilmore East fire, the Wangary fire, and the Canberra Firestorm. Data from these fires were analysed using a top-down and bottom-up qualitative analysis technique. Forty-four breakdowns in coordinated decision making were identified, which yielded 83 disconnects grouped into three main categories: operational, informational and evaluative. Disconnects were specific instances where differences in understanding existed between team members. The reasons why disconnects occurred were largely consistent across the three sets of data. In some cases multiple disconnects occurred in a temporal manner, which suggested some evidence of disconnects creating states that were conducive to the occurrence of further disconnects. In terms of resolution, evaluative disconnects were nearly always resolved however operational and informational disconnects were rarely resolved effectively. The exploratory data analysis and discussion presented here represents the first systematic research to provide information about the reasons why breakdowns occur in emergency management and presents an account of how team processes can act to disrupt coordination and the operational response.
To date, theoretical and empirical research has largely focused on interpersonal
forms of trust and trust building at the expense of institutional forms, despite a
rich conceptual trust foundation for the latter. Indeed, in order to understand and
address widespread failures of trust, not only in business institutions, but also in
other central institutions such as healthcare, government, education and religion,
we argue that research must begin to integrate institutional factors with
interpersonal ones. Moreover, most research to date has neither explicitly nor
fully considered the salient role of context, especially those contexts involving high
degrees of uncertainty, vulnerability and/or stress that are particularly germane to
trust. Utilising a cross-level case study, we discuss how both interpersonal factors
and institutional influences, shaped by context, develop both organisational trust
and trust in leadership. We also provide several recommendations for future
research, and make the case for studying trust by building trust with research
subjects. By examining the interplay among interpersonal trust factors and trustbuilding
efforts with institutional factors, we can develop a more complete picture
of how trust within organisations (and even across organisations) is developed,
sustained, and even rebuilt.
In an effort to improve organizational outcomes, including
safety, in wildland fire management, researchers and practitioners
have turned to a domain of research on organizational
performance known as High Reliability Organizing1 (HRO).
The HRO paradigm emerged in the late 1980s in an effort to
identify commonalities among organizations that function under
hazardous conditions but experience fewer than their fair
share of adverse events (see for instance: Klein and others 1995;
Weick and others 1999; Weick and Sutcliffe 2001; Sutcliffe
2011).
The concept of high reliability was introduced to the U.S.
wildland fire community in 1995 as part of a five-day workshop
with the goal of more fully understanding the role of human
factors in organizational performance and outcomes (Putnam
1995). Beginning in 2004, inter-agency fire management
leadership, Federal fire research and the Wildland Fire Lessons
Learned Center jointly sponsored three annual three-day workshops
focused specifically on the principles of HRO (Keller
2004). These were followed, in 2007, by a five-day “train-thetrainer”
workshop and teaching guide (Wildland Fire Lessons
Learned Center 2008). In 2007, the first author initiated a collaborative effort
to empirically establish the status of HRO practices in Federal
wildland fire operations. The purposes of this study were to:
• develop the first comprehensive portrait of HRO practices
in wildland fire,
• understand the relationships between HRO practices
and those of other theoretically related organizations and
workgroups describing high performance, and
• consider the implications of these findings on HRO theory
and wildland fire management.
Although research on trust in an organizational context has advanced considerably in recent years, the literature has yet to produce a set of generalizable propositions that inform our understanding of the organization and coordination of work. We propose that conceptualizing trust as an organizing principle is a powerful way of integrating the diverse trust literature and distilling generalizable implications for how trust affects organizing. We develop the notion of trust as an organizing principle by specifying structuring and mobilizing as two sets of causal pathways through which trust influences several important properties of organizations. We further describe specific mechanisms within structuring and mobilizing that influence interaction patterns and organizational processes. The principal aim of the framework is to advance the literature by connecting the psychological and sociological micro-foundations of trust with the macro-bases of organizing. The paper concludes by demonstrating how the framework can be applied to yield novel insights into traditional views of organizations and to stimulate original and innovative avenues of organizational research that consider both the benefits and downsides of trust.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which measures and operationalisations of intra‐organisational trust reflect the essential elements of the existing conceptualisation of trust inside the workplace.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper provides an overview of the essential points from the rich variety of competing conceptualisations and definitions in the management and organisational literatures. It draws on this overview to present a framework of issues for researchers to consider when designing research based on trust. This framework is then used to analyse the content of 14 recently published empirical measures of intra‐organisational trust. It is noted for each measure the form that trust takes, the content, the sources of evidence and the identity of the recipient, as well as matters related to the wording of items.
Findings
The paper highlights where existing measures match the theory, but also shows a number of “blind‐spots” or contradictions, particularly over the content of the trust belief, the selection of possible sources of evidence for trust, and inconsistencies in the identity of the referent.
Research limitations/implications
It offers researchers some recommendations for future research designed to capture trust among different parties in organisations, and contains an Appendix with 14 measures for intra‐organisational trust.
Originality/value
The value of the paper is twofold: it provides an overview of the conceptualisation literature, and a detailed content‐analysis of several different measures for trust. This should prove useful in helping researchers refine their research designs in the future.
Each year Australian fire and land management agencies deploy Incident Management Teams (IMTs) to manage bushfires. An important question is: what are the key competencies required for IMT personnel? Recent research in high reliability organisations suggests that teamwork-related competencies are likely to be most important because incident management depends critically upon interdependent team members, often operating in dynamic, uncertain, time pressured, and high stakes environments. This study used semi-structured interviews with experienced IMT personnel (N = 15) to identify 12 key competencies important for bushfire IMT roles. Analysis of 30 bushfire incidents described by interviewees confirmed that three competencies (a) interpersonal and communication skills, (b) leadership, and (c) IMT procedural knowledge were central. Potential implications for organisational decision making in emergency contexts in general are outlined.
Research on organizational knowledge indicates that the level of an organization's complex knowledge determines its capability to continuously innovate and remain competitive. Since individuals are often the originators of organizational knowledge, interpersonal complex knowledge sharing becomes a significant organizational process. An important issue in this process is the presence of trust, which facilitates complex knowledge sharing between individuals. In view of that, this study investigates the role of trust in knowledge sharing between individuals within a team setting. With data analysis results, this article shows how affect-based trust and cognition-based trust affect complex knowledge sharing between individuals working within teams.
Given the foundational and the fundamental role that the Incident Command System (ICS) is intended to play in on-scene response efforts across the United States, it is important to determine what is known about the system and how this is known. Accordingly, this study addresses the following research question: 'How has research explored the ICS?'. To probe this question, a methodological review of the scant, but widening, pool of research literature directly related to the ICS was conducted. This paper reports on the findings of the analysis related to the focus, theoretical frameworks, population and sampling, methods, results, and conclusions of the existing research literature. While undertaken using different methodological approaches, the ICS research suggests that the system may be limited in its usefulness. In addition, the paper discusses the implications of the research for the state of knowledge of the system and for the direction of future research.
© 2015 The Author(s). Disasters © Overseas Development Institute, 2015.
Interest in the determinants of interpersonal trust has been increasing, and a substantial amount of work has looked at the effect of trustee behaviors and characteristics. Yet, characteristics of trustors, trustor-trustee dyads, and teams in which the trustor and trustee are embedded may also play a substantial role in shaping trust. In this study, we adopt a multilevel and longitudinal perspective to evaluate the extent to which perceived trustworthiness is influenced by determinants at different levels and how the influence of these levels changes over time. We find that trustees, dyadic, and team characteristics have varying degrees of influence on perceived ability benevolence, and integrity, but common across all dimensions is a prevailing influence of trustor characteristics. Over time, the influence of trustor characteristics wane somewhat and the influence for trustee and dyadic characteristics grow. Our findings suggest that the locus of trust primarily resides at the trustor.
The incident command system (ICS) is a particular approach to assembly and control of the highly reliable temporary organizations employed by many public safety professionals to manage diverse resources at emergency scenes. Our inductive study of a fire department's use of the ICS identified three main factors enabling this distinctively bureaucratic system to produce remarkably flexible and reliable organizations for complex, volatile task environments. This research suggests the possibility of new organizational forms able to capitalize on the control and efficiency benefits of bureaucracy while avoiding or overcoming its tendencies toward inertia.
We develop theory that distinguishes trust among employees in typical task contexts (marked by low levels of situational unpredictability and danger) from trust in "high-reliability" task contexts (those marked by high levels of situational unpredictability and danger). A study of firefighters showed that trust in high-reliability task contexts was based on coworkers' integrity, whereas trust in typical task contexts was also based on benevolence and identification. Trust in high-reliability contexts predicted physical symptoms, whereas trust in typical contexts predicted withdrawal. Job demands moderated linkages with performance: trust in high-reliability task contexts was a more positive predictor of performance when unpredictable and dangerous calls were more frequent.
The purpose of this paper was to further the understanding of swift trust in temporary organizations by examining the role swift trust plays in emergency management coor-dination and how role clarity acts as an enabler within temporary organizational con-figurations. A qualitative interview study was conducted with 32 liaison officers working in three strategic-level emergency operations centres in Australia. Role clarity was identified as an important factor in the successful formation of emergency management temporary organizations by emergency services and critical infrastructure liaison offic-ers working in multi-agency arrangements. By providing role clarity, liaison officers may enable collaborative working practices among organizations involved in emergency man-agement and thus facilitate multi-agency coordination.The function of role clarity in the context of swift trust is largely overlooked in emergency management. Therefore, this study has contributed to the knowledge of swift trust by empirically verifying the impact of role clarity by liaison officers working in the research setting.
Teams have become the primary unit used to conduct emergency service activities. Fire, ambulance, police, search and rescue, and coastguard use teams extensively, ranging from frontline response to command, control and communication (C3) activities. Emergency service teams regularly operate in difficult environments. These teams are required to make decisions and act in dynamic environments that may be uncertain, time-pressured, involve high stakes and pose a threat to either the team or community members.
The challenges confronting emergency service teams may be complex and dynamic so that no single decision maker can develop an adequate understanding of all the issues. This has led to the development of distributed decision making where each team member takes responsibility for a component of the decision making (Brehmer 1991). Teams using distributed decision making are found across a range of organisations and in many other settings besides emergency services, including health, military and industry (Hollenbeck et al. 1995). Central to the composition of such teams is the extent to which members have worked with each other in the past and their knowledge of one another (i.e., member familiarity). This chapter explores the influence of member familiarity on teamwork processes and decision making.
Frequently emergency service organisations may need to deploy teams where the members haven’t previously trained or worked together. Several important questions arise from this requirement. First, do teams consisting of personnel who have not worked together before (i.e., an unfamiliar or mixed familiarity team) perform as well as teams where all of the members have worked together previously (i.e., an intact or pre-formed team)? Second, if there are performance differences between unfamiliar and intact (familiar) teams: (a) what are these differences, (b) how large are they, and (c) are they of practical significance to emergency service agencies? Lastly, what types of intervention might an emergency service organisation use to help teams integrate members who haven’t worked or trained together?
This chapter considers how the familiarity of members may affect team performance.
In the wake of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, organizations involved in emergency management at the local, state and federal level were mandated to utilize the Incident Command System (ICS) to structure on-scene response efforts. The system is currently relied upon as an organizing mechanism for response in the United States, and its widespread use outside of the United States is being advocated. Yet, there is little evidence that the system is consistently used as designed or a salve to common response problems. This paper reviews the evolution of ICS in practice and the available research on its use and effectiveness. The review makes clear that more research on the system is urgently needed.
The aim was to explore which components military personnel in peacekeeping operations perceive as contributing to trust in their superior and subordinate leaders during international or national operations or exercises. Data were collected among 591 military officers and cadets from Norway and Sweden using a questionnaire with open-ended questions. Two superior categories emerged: Individual-Related Characteristics and Communication- and Relationship-Related Characteristics. The former is made up of the higher-level categories Personal attributes and Experience and competence. The latter is derived from the higher-level categories Consideration and inspiration and Effective communication. In turn, all higher-level categories are underpinned by a number of subcategories (13 altogether). When comparing trust in superior leaders with trust in subordinate leaders, the results show that trust in superiors is characterised to a greater extent by Communication- and Relationship-related characteristics and also by Experience and professional knowledge. Trust in subordinate leaders is characterised to a greater extent by Personal attributes and Management competence.
Trusting and feeling trusted are related but unique components of a trusting relationship. However, we
understand relatively little about the effects of felt trust on work performance and organizational citizenship
behavior. From a self-evaluative perspective, this study argued that when employees perceive that their
supervisors trust them, their organization-based self-esteem is enhanced, leading them to perform better in
the workplace. We tested our hypotheses on a sample of 497 teachers using two trust measures, that is, reliance and disclosure, and found support for them on the basis of the reliance (but not the disclosure) measure. The effect of felt trust especially reliance on the employees’ work performances were mediated by their organization- based self-esteem.
Few natural resource management (NRM) studies discriminate between trust and
trustworthiness. However, this approach, which combines the attitude of one
actor with the characteristics of another actor, is common in the organisational
management literature. Our case study, set in a wildfire management context in
Australia, sought to explore: (1) how community members and NRM staff
defined trust and described trustworthiness; (2) how these trust definitions did, or
did not, reflect conceptualisations in the literature; and, (3) whether explicitly
differentiating between trust and trustworthiness is useful in an NRM context.
Our findings suggest that participants defined trust in three main ways: as ‘having
a good relationship’; as ‘being able to rely on others’ in a one-way manner; and,
as ‘a relationship where parties rely on one another’ in a reciprocal manner. Our
findings also suggest that participants differentiated these trust definitions from
trustworthiness, that is, from the characteristics and actions which made an
individual or agency worthy of trust. These findings suggest that it is useful to
differentiate trust from trustworthiness, because it allows NRM managers and
researchers to better understand both the trusting intentions of community
members and the characteristics of the agency which contribute to that trust.
Although research has focused on the implications of trusting others, little is known regarding how being trustworthy might influence one's own performance. In this article, the relationship between being perceived as trustworthy by one's coworkers and individual performance is examined. Exchange theory is used to consider the implications of the different factors of trustworthiness (capability, integrity, and benevolence) and how these factors might interact to predict performance. Results of a field study (Study 1) revealed that coworkers' perceptions of an individual's capability and integrity interacted to predict his or her performance. A laboratory study (Study 2) provided further insight into the exchange mechanism underlying this relationship.
Current wildfire management policy succeeds in suppressing 99% of all fires on public lands. Indirect costs of this achievement include the development of dense vegetation in the absence of fire, and increasingly more intense fires when they do erupt. The result is a fire management system with rising costs and fire-dependent forests that are frequently characterized by declining health. Wildland fire use (WFU), the use of fire to accomplish specific pre-stated resource management objectives, is considered appropriate in many remote wildlands where a naturally ignited fire may safely be used to improve forest health. Ecological benefits associated with WFU include improved watershed conditions, enhanced wildlife habitat, and more resilient forested ecosystems. Economic benefits include reduced suppression and fuels treatment costs over the long term. Policy challenges are complex, however; land management agencies face increased planning requirements as well as the need to develop both institutional and public support before the full potential of wildland fire use can be realized.
This paper presents a model of trust and its interaction with information flow, influence, and control, and reports on an experiment based on the model to test several hypotheses about problem-solving effectiveness. The subjects were managers and the independent variable was the individual manager's initial level of trust. Groups of business executives were given identical factual information about a difficult manufacturing-marketing policy problem; half the groups were briefed to expect trusting behavior, the other half to expect untrusting behavior. There were highly significant differences in effectiveness between the high-trust groups and the low-trust groups in the clarification of goals, the reality of information exchanged, the scope of search for solutions, and the commitment of managers to implement solutions. The findings indicate that shared trust or lack of trust apparently are a significant determinant of managerial problem-solving effectiveness.
This study extends the literature on trust and leadership by examining trust from a new perspective. Specifically, we investigate how subordinates' perceptions of their leaders' trust in them, which we label subordinates' felt trustworthiness, influence their performance, organizational citizenship behavior and job satisfaction. Results demonstrated a positive relationship between felt trustworthiness and these dependent measures. Furthermore, felt trustworthiness was a more significant predictor of these outcomes than the subordinates' perceptions of their leaders' trustworthiness. Implications of these_findings are discussed.
