A Role-Based Resource Management Approach for Emergency Organizations

Role-based resource management in emergency organizations´ operative work focuses on allocating roles to the right persons during emergency operations. Role-based resource management is knowledge-intensive work of commanding officers, in which information systems are expected to support the processes efficiently. Based on our ethnographic field research of emergency organizations´ operative work, a need for establishing a common role-based resource management approach has emerged. In this work we propose a role-based resource management approach to operative work in emergency organizations which 1) covers different phases of resource management, 2) describes their interdependencies, and 3) identifies the information needs of different phases. This approach has implications for both designing information systems and organizations´ operative models. Its benefits include the ability to develop a real-time resource view, better allocation of right persons to handle the right roles, improved common practices, and understanding better the resourcing capabilities of other organizations.