Managing systemic risks: Opening up public crisis management in global networks

The more complex the interdependencies within global networks become, the more challenging it becomes to manage overarching crises with cascade effects. The organisations involved in crisis management are independent but must act collaboratively. This challenge affects both private and public organisations. The increase of autonomy and self-organisation seems to be an appropriate way to meet these challenges. However, disaster control is strongly based on hierarchical management structures. This paper shows design options and fields of action for collaborative and post-bureaucratic crisis management in global networks and, on this basis, describes the state of research and research gaps. Particular attention is paid to the state of empirical research. Building on this, the paper presents a first research framework for collaborative and post-bureaucratic crisis management in global networks. The level of openness and the combination of hierarchical and collaborative elements in crisis management are taken into account.