Collaborating in a centralized governance mechanism: structure and fragmentation of large-scale response coordination during the 2018 Typhoon Mangkhut in Shenzhen

PurposeThis paper aims to examine a large-scale typhoon response coordination, focusing on the emergency collaborative network (ECN) configuration and structural properties that characterized the 2018 Typhoon Mangkhut response operations in Shenzhen, China.Design/methodology/approachThe response coordination of Typhoon Mangkhut was operationalized as a Shenzhen-based ECN established upon a six-week observation. A systematic content analysis of publicly available government documents and newspaper articles was conducted to identify participating organizations and interorganizational relationships built and sustained during and immediately after the disaster. Social network metrics at levels of the node, subgroup of nodes and whole network were utilized to examine network capacity, network homophily and network performance, respectively.FindingsResults of the centrality analysis demonstrate that government agencies at municipal and district/county levels took central network positions while private and non-profit organizations were mostly positioned at the network periphery. The blocking analysis points to a salient homophily effect that participating organizations sharing similar attributes were more likely to connect with each other. A further investigation of whole network metrics and the small-world index reveals the highly fragmented and discontinued features of ECN, which may result in unsystematic coordination among organizational actors.Originality/valueThis paper is distinctive in examining the coordination structure among response organizations embedded in a centralized and monocentric governance system and, more importantly, how the structural characteristics can differ from that evidenced in a more decentralized and polycentric system.