The DOI matches its Crossref record; 17 of the 18 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Crisis Management in Hindsight: Cognition, Communication, Coordination, and Control
Abstract
This article argues that cognition is central to performance in emergency management. Cognition is defined as the capacity to recognize the degree of emerging risk to which a community is exposed and to act on that information. Using the case of Hurricane Katrina to illustrate the collapse of the standard model of emergency management without a clear focus on the role of cognition, the author reframes the concept of intergovernmental crisis management as a complex, adaptive system. That is, the system needs to adjust and adapt its performance to fit the demands of an ever‐changing physical, engineered, and social environment. The terms of cognition, communication, coordination, and control are redefined in ways that fit the reality of practice in extreme events. A reframed intergovernmental crisis management system may be conceived as a dynamic interorganizational system that is characterized by four primary decision points: (1) detection of risk, (2) recognition and interpretation of risk for the immediate context, (3) communication of risk to multiple organizations in a wider region, and (4) self‐organization and mobilization of a collective, community response system to reduce risk and respond to danger.
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In the citing paper
“Cognition is the ability to recognise an emerging risk and understand its nature, size and potential impact across different aspects of society and everyday life, policy arenas and their interaction based on processing detected information (Comfort, 2007) representing the first line of defence in protecting human security.”
From Risk Governance, State Capacity, and Critical Human Security: Evolution of Risk Governance in Response to Systemic Risk in the UK and South Korea (2025) · cites this paper as Comfort, 2007
In the citing paper
“Kwon et al, (2023), drawing on Comfort (2007) and Farazmand (2007) have highlighted three key components of state capacity for crisis governance -cognition, co-ordination, and capacity to implement (see Figure 1).”
From Risk Governance, State Capacity, and Critical Human Security: Evolution of Risk Governance in Response to Systemic Risk in the UK and South Korea (2025) · cites this paper as Comfort (2007)
Citations
Cites
Gioia, D. A., Mehra, A., & Weick, K. E. (1996) · Academy of Management Review · doi:10.2307/259169 · Cited by 15,616
Collective Mind in Organizations: Heedful Interrelating on Flight Decks
Weick, K. E., & Roberts, K. H. (1993) · Administrative Science Quarterly · doi:10.2307/2393372 · Cited by 4,517
Decision making in action: Models and methods
Zakay, D. (1994) · Acta Psychologica · doi:10.1016/0001-6918(94)90039-6 · Cited by 1,562
Decision Making in Action: Models and Methods
Klein, G. A. (1993) · Cited by 1,345
Harnessing Complexity: Organizational Implications of a Scientific Frontier
Axelrod, R., & Cohen, M. D. (2000) · Cited by 1,304
Narodny, L., Luhmann, N., & Bednarz, J. (1991) · Leonardo · doi:10.2307/1575589 · Cited by 1,007
Bow ties, metabolism and disease
Csete, M., & Doyle, J. (2004) · Trends in biotechnology · doi:10.1016/j.tibtech.2004.07.007 · Cited by 468
Linking Expertise and Naturalistic Decision Making
Salas, E., & Klein, G. A. (2001) · Psychology Press eBooks · doi:10.4324/9781410604200 · Cited by 386
Shared Risk: Complex Systems in Seismic Response
Comfort, L. K. (1999) · Medical Entomology and Zoology · Cited by 347
Self-citationRISK, SECURITY, AND DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Comfort, L. K. (2005) · Annual Review of Political Science · doi:10.1146/annurev.polisci.8.081404.075608 · Cited by 254
Self-citation
Research works printed but not linked: 4
- Alkan Michael L.2006.Things I Learned from Working with Victims of Hurricane Katrina. Paper presented at the Conference on Future Challenges for Crisis Management in Europe May 4–5 Stockholm Sweden.
- Kiel Douglas, 1994, Managing Chaos and Complexity in Government
- MacCash Doug, 2005, City Must Overcome Disaster, Mayor Says; Nagin: Response Still Isn’t Enough, Times-Picayune
- Simon Herbert A, 1997, The Sciences of the Artificial
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Organizational Response to Adversity: Fusing Crisis Management and Resilience Research Streams
Williams, T. A., Gruber, D. A., Sutcliffe, K. M., Shepherd, D. A., & Zhao, E. Y. (2017) · Academy of Management Annals · doi:10.5465/annals.2015.0134 · Cited by 1,945
“Thus, research in this stream has sought to develop emergencymanagement policies and procedures (Comfort, 2007; Iannella & Henricksen, 2007) that identify coordination, communication, and other activities that enable a more effective disaster response (Comfort & Kapucu, 2006;Marcum,Bevc, &Butts,…”
BackgroundA critical review on supply chain risk – Definition, measure and modeling
Heckmann, I., Comes, T., & Nickel, S. (2014) · Omega · doi:10.1016/j.omega.2014.10.004 · Cited by 996
“Particularly in crisis and emergency management, resilience is often defined as the response to an actual threat, the ability to “bounce back” to the initial state [18,33,42,89].”
BackgroundYates, D., & Paquette, S. (2010) · International Journal of Information Management · doi:10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2010.10.001 · Cited by 881
“Comfort (2007) additionally notes that the ‘common operating picture’ requires interdependence and knowledge sharing by thinking individuals, not reliance on hierarchical information structures.”
A framework for examining leadership in extreme contexts
Hannah, S. T., Uhl‐Bien, M., Avolio, B. J., & Cavarretta, F. (2009) · The Leadership Quarterly · doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2009.09.006 · Cited by 847
“For example, the Mann Gulchfire (Weick, 1993) and the 1996Mount Everest climbing incidents (Kayes, 2004)—bothwhich affected isolated and relatively small groups—have been considered as more limited; while events such as the Indian Ocean Tsunami (Athukorala & Resosudarmo, 2005) or hurricane Katrina (Comfort, 2007) have…”
InfluentialManaging Transboundary Crises: Identifying the Building Blocks of an Effective Response System
Ansell, C., Boin, A., & Keller, A. C. (2010) · Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management · doi:10.1111/j.1468-5973.2010.00620.x · Cited by 722
“In recent years, much progress has been made in the actual development of such systems, but a shared standard has not emerged (Comfort, 2007; Demchak, 2010; Van der Walle et al., 2010).”
Metadata
- Authors
- Comfort, L. K.
- Affiliations
- University of Pittsburgh (US)
- Corresponding author
- Comfort, Louise K.
- ORCID
- Comfort, Louise K.
- Venue
- Public Administration Review
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2007-12
- Volume
- 67
- Issue
- s1
- Pages
- 189-197
- ISSN
- 0033-3352 (ISSN-L)
- 1540-6210
- OpenAlex
- W2089773578
- Cited by
- 940
- References
- 18
- Citations by year
- 2026: 116 · 2025: 82 · 2024: 66 · 2023: 95 · 2022: 75 · 2021: 71 · 2020: 69 · 2019: 47 · 2018: 37 · 2017: 41 · 2016: 52 · 2015: 38 · 2014: 38 · 2013: 37 · 2012: 28
- FWCI
- 35.92
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Public Administration Review (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Disaster Management and Resilience
- Social Sciences › Communication › Public Relations and Crisis Communication
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Safety and Risk Management
- Keywords
- crisis management, emergency management, cognition, Hurricane Katrina, complex adaptive systems, interorganizational systems, risk identification, risk communication, coordination, control, self-organization, community response, extreme events
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