A Latent Resilience Capacity: Individual and Organizational Factors Associated with Public Library Managers’ Willingness to Engage in Post-Disaster Response and Recovery

Abstract

Recent natural disasters in the United States have prompted numerous local and voluntary organizations to set aside routine activities and assume crisis-related roles to meet the needs of the community. Despite such efforts, emergency authorities seldom utilize their capacity effectively. With the shift toward a more collaborative approach to emergency management, scholars and government officials call for identifying existing and potential actors in the preparedness phase. Efforts to anticipate potential decisions and actions of organizations that do not routinely deal with disasters, however, necessitate a better understanding of how managers view their post-disaster-related roles and what may account for such perceptions. Focusing on public libraries, I drew on information gathered through surveys and interviews with library officials and found that perceptions and projected behavior vary across libraries. To further investigate variations in willingness to engage in response and illuminate the driving forces behind such projected behavior, I explored context-related characteristics in which library officials operate as well as factors related to individual managerial practices. Specifically, how managers define themselves in their public service role and the perceptions they hold of their organizations.