Emergency Team Communication: Adaptive Sensemaking in Turbulent Environments

Understanding patterns identified in research on emergency teams (ETs) may not only enrich applied understanding of coordinated emergency response but also broader theory about communication and the adaptive potential of groups and teams more generally. This chapter establishes the theoretical significance of ETs, especially for scholarship wishing to acknowledge and account for their embeddedness in organizations and institutions. Further, it describes what has been learned from ET research with regard to the impact of stress, the management of emergent ambiguity, and the role of communication in postincident learning and continuous improvement.