Collaborative systems development in disaster relief: The impact of multi-level governance

Disaster management information systems for international humanitarian relief are developed in contexts involving local, national and inter-governmental organizations together with local and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs). While the multi-organizational nature of disaster response is known to create challenges for information systems development, to date, less attention has been paid to their multi-level nature. This research sheds light on the implications of multi-level governance for disaster information systems development by integrating political science and information systems theories of multi-level governance. The integrated theoretical framework is then used to analyze a case study of a system development effort undertaken by a multi-organizational coordination body consisting of the headquarters of six large, international humanitarian relief agencies, together with their country offices in a Central American country. This research finds that multi-level ...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: ISF
• Authors: Edgar A. Maldonado, Carleen F. Maitland, Andrea Hoplight Tapia
• Keywords: Information Systems, Information Systems Development, ISF 2010, Multi-level Governance