Improving Local Government Resilience: Highlighting the Role of Internal Resources in Crisis Management

Abstract

A survey of U.S. local government officials (n = 307) investigates how to improve local governments’ crisis resilience. The results indicate that internal resources (i.e., time, money, and staff) were deemed important to local governments’ crisis management; however, there was a significant decrease in their perceived availability. Moreover, our results suggest that neither community size nor form of government predicted the availability of internal resources. Finally, internal resources were significant predictors of local government officials’ evaluations of a crisis; however, internal resources did not predict the officials’ evaluations of the strength of their crisis management. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed here.