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The flip side of the coin: Perils of public–private disaster cooperation
Author(s) -
Uhnoo Sara,
Persson Sofia
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
journal of contingencies and crisis management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.007
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1468-5973
pISSN - 0966-0879
DOI - 10.1111/1468-5973.12387
Subject(s) - cornerstone , resilience (materials science) , business , public relations , emergency management , crisis management , work (physics) , empirical research , public administration , disaster response , political science , engineering , law , mechanical engineering , art , philosophy , physics , epistemology , visual arts , thermodynamics
Private companies often actively engage in disaster response. In recent years, disaster resilience, including public–private partnerships, has been identified as an ideational cornerstone of crisis management policy. This study offers insights into how these international policy trends in disaster management manifest in practice. Based on an empirical study of a large wildfire in the Swedish province of Västmanland in 2014, we investigate how market opportunities and principles influenced the rescue efforts and cooperation between public disaster responders and private actors. The findings illustrate the flip side of public–private disaster cooperation, in relation to three perils: (1) uncertain costs of private disaster support owing to the ambivalent roles of private actors as either disaster entrepreneurs or volunteers; (2) a dangerous work environment for private actors involved in public disaster response and (3) e‐volunteers' provision of business donation details around the public response by naming and shaming ‘ungenerous’ private companies.