TROY, N.Y., Nov. 6 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers are creating a model to help predict how an organization's culture will affect its ability to respond to a disaster.
Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, N.Y., are studying the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the U.S. Coast Guard to Hurricane Katrina to learn how the organizations' cultures and processes affected their ability to act, RPI said in a news release.
Researchers collected documentation about how each organization reacted during the hurricane, RPI said, as well as cultural and organizational characteristics that impacted both agencies.
FEMA, hit with many changes prior to the hurricane, had a fatalist culture that "crippled the agency's ability to fulfill its normal repertoire of emergency coordination," said William Wallace, professor of decision sciences and engineering systems at Rensselaer.
The Coast Guard, meanwhile, underwent few changes and was "better equipped to fulfill its duties," Wallace said.
Next the research team will build a computer simulation that models a disaster where decision-makers must divide attention among tasks and audiences, then add scenarios related to process and culture, Wallace said.
He said the model should say, "If you institute these rules and a disaster happens, you will succeed or you will fail."
