Strategic management of America's counter-terrorist response: the role of boundary spanning, networking, and collateral organizations in emergency management

Abstract

This work investigates the organizational differences among organizations which have experienced and responded to acts of international terrorism and those which have not. The author investigates several organizational characteristics, using both qualitative and quantitative data collection methodologies. The relationship between organizational experience with international terrorism and the external focus of the subject organizations is examined. Specifically, the author compares experienced and non-experienced organizations on the following variables: perceived importance of external organizations; perceived sources of organizational information; perceived sources of organizational innovation; perceived sources of external communication; and existence of formal external coordination mechanisms. Comparisons are drawn across managerial and technical levels of the experienced and non-experienced organizations.