This study aims to increase our understanding of how co-operation in inter-municipality policy networks in a Swedish region is established and maintained regarding emergency management. We discuss how a network of five municipalities emerged and took shape. Overall, we conclude that co-ordination and co-operation in municipal emergency management are probably relatively easy to develop, because it is easy for the involved actors to see the benefits. Sharing resources is seen as crucial when establishing and, not least, financing efficient, high-quality emergency management. The municipalities' lack of resources to provide effective emergency services, as required by law, makes them dependent on each other. Limits for co-ordination were connected to distance and other geographical factors. Other limits of equal importance were linked to factors such as culture/tradition, mutual understanding, size of partners, and unwillingness to give up authority as well as a prior barrier for co-operation between small and bigger municipalities.

There are increased demands to prepare for and coordinate of crisis management in public administrative bodies. Governmental organizations and authorities have responsibility for providing systems and structures of coordination before, during, and after crises. Among these are the technical information systems which create the structuring arena for coordination and integration that is analyzed here. There are several technical information systems to choose from for municipalities, which are responsible for local crisis management in Sweden. One technical information system, known as web-based information system (WIS), was a national initiative, but due to the local autonomy mandated in the Swedish constitution it was complicated to get municipalities to choose the national system and alternative local technical information systems were developed. The study builds on a bottom-up analysis of how municipalities choose technical information systems within crisis management. The main conclusion points out the importance of organizational structure in governance and the demand of flexibility in technology.

In public services, there is a trend to increasingly utilize collaborations with non-professional volunteers for certain tasks, one example being emergency response. In many of these collaborations, information technology (IT) is an essential tool, and inadequate IT support can have far-reaching consequences—including even the loss of lives. Since a volunteer is a different type of actor, and may have different technical requirements, compared to professionals, there is a need to explore how collaborations between professionals and volunteers can be successfully developed. This paper is based on a case study of the Enhanced Neighbor project, which uses volunteers as first responders in emergency response. The study highlights important factors to consider when involving volunteers, including how IT can foster the collaboration, and the volunteers’ needs for IT support.

Purpose – This study aims to explore recent public sector trends, inter-organizational and cross-sector

collaborations, and analyzes these in terms of implications for participative development of information

systems (IS). These trends are understood as being part of emerging forms of e-government. Initial

suggestions for how to develop IS in the new contexts are provided.

Design/methodology/approach – Three cases involving the trends described above, taking place in

the Swedish emergency response system, are studied and used as basis for identified participative IS

development challenges and suggested adaptation needs. Data collection involves semi-structured

interviews, focus groups and future workshops.

Findings – The identified challenges concern balancing ideological versus practical needs, lack of

resources, lack of know-how and design techniques and tool challenges. Some practical implications for

participative IS development include more extensive focus on stakeholder and legal analysis, need for

interdisciplinary design teams, merging of task and needs analysis for yet-undefined user tasks and

using on-line alternatives for interacting with users.

Research implications/limitations – The study is exploratory where the three cases are in

different, but at the same time interrelated, collaboration contexts. The identified implications and

challenges provide proposals that in future research can be applied, formalized and integrated when

developing practically feasible participative IS development approaches.

Originality/value – It is argued that the results point toward a current emerging form of

e-government initiatives directed toward certain demarcated groups of citizens actually carrying out

certain tasks for their co-citizens and society rather than the broad masses, having far-reaching

practical implications and complicating the issue of IS development.

Emergency response organisations struggle with resource constraints and thereby faces challenges in providing high-quality public services. Utilising voluntary first responders is one way to address these challenges. There are different types of volunteers who can help at an emergency site, e.g. citizen volunteers or voluntary professionals from other occupations. To successfully engage with and utilise these resources, adequate information and communication technology (ICT) is necessary. In this meta-study, combining and further exploring two previous studies, the aim is to identify, analyse and evaluate suitable functions for smartphone applications that can be used to dispatch and support volunteers. The results show that the functions can be divided into essential ones that are necessary for the response to work at all, and others that might contribute to a more effective response. The study also shows that the same functions can be used for different volunteer groups.