The Australian Emergency Manager: A Journey towards Professionalisation

Emergency events are on the increase, impacting the Australian community. Emergency events may arise from weather-based natural hazard events such as bushfires, floods, and heatwaves. The impact of the changing climate is increasing the number and severity of weather-based natural hazard events. Climate change is also leading to events that cascade or cause other events to occur, and compounding events where more than one event occurs at the same time. Further, community impacts can arise from other emergency events, such as cyber-attacks, terrorist incidents or industrial accidents. Preventing, preparing for, responding to, and recovering from emergency events requires a series of complex and interconnected tasks and actions to be undertaken. In Australia, these tasks are led by a person sometimes known as an emergency manager; however, the term emergency manager is amorphous and undefined.

Currently, emergency management is not recognised as a profession in Australia. The role of the emergency manager is not specifically defined under Australian emergency management arrangements. Thus, the individual Australian emergency manager is not recognised as a member of a formal profession. A major contributing factor to the lack of recognition of the emergency manager as a professional within a recognised profession is the inconsistent selection, education, and training of emergency managers across Australian states and territories.

This study examined Australian emergency events occurring over a period of 20 years (1997–2017) that were subject to judicial or semi-judicial inquiries. Judicial inquiries include those conducted in a legal environment, such as Coroners or Criminal Courts. Semi-judicial inquiries are those where there is a requirement to answer questions or provide information, but it is not led within a formal court type process. Judicial and semi-judicial inquiries are conducted for serious and significant emergency events. Judicial or semi-juridical inquiry reports were analysed, and interviews were conducted with eight emergency event inquiry report authors to ascertain the human capacities required of the emergency manager.

A Gadamerian philosophical hermeneutic approach was adopted as the research methodology. The Gadamerian methodology aligns with the philosophy of the professional doctorate in acknowledging the researcher’s participation in the field being studied. As both a practitioner and a student, I was supported by the Gadamerian methodology in documenting, reflecting on, and reconsidering the initial horizon that I brought to the research and the changes to my horizon that occurred throughout the research journey.

A literature review examined the broader management literature and emergency incident inquiry reports. Through this investigation of both theoretical and practice-based literature, human capacities of the emergency manager were distilled, analysed, and themed. The literature describes how the current process of professionalisation employed across the field of emergency management applies the identified human capacities in managing emergency events. The literature evidenced that education, both vocational and tertiary, while providing many of the human capacities identified in the research, is also integral to emergency management professionalisation. Certification, the process of seeking formal recognition of a combination of educational and practical applied knowledge—that is, recognising many of the identified human capacities—also supports emergency management professionalisation.

This research makes three original contributions to knowledge. First, it proposes a clear definition for the Australian ‘Emergency Manager’ and separates the role from that of a ‘Response Manager’ and a ‘Recovery Manager’. Separating and defining these three roles supports improved understanding and clarifies the previously amorphous boundaries of what had been loosely labelled as one role. Understanding the three unique and separate roles, and the human capacities required for each, supports both professionalisation of emergency management and future research across the spectrum of emergency management activities.

The second contribution to new knowledge is the development of the Emergency Management Disciplinary Spectrum, which describes in a pictorial manner the application of disciplinary concepts and thinking to the field of emergency management. The Emergency Management Disciplinary Spectrum supports understanding of disciplinary, multidisciplinary, and transdisciplinary concepts and their application to the newly defined Emergency Manager, Response Manager and Recovery Manager roles.

The third original contribution to knowledge is the Emergency Management T-Shaped Transdisciplinary Model, which provides a theoretical and pictorial model to describe the newly defined roles and support the development of people into those roles. It is proposed that the Emergency Management T-Shaped Transdisciplinary Model be applied to the selection and development of Australian emergency managers. While T-shaped leadership models have previously been identified for general management activities, this is the first application of such a model in emergency management. The new Emergency Management T-Shaped Transdisciplinary Model provides a developmental framework for both current and future Australian emergency managers.

The new Emergency Management T-Shaped Transdisciplinary Model supports the application of the human capacities identified in this research to future emergency events. Increasing the human capacities of the Emergency Manager, Response Manager and Recovery Manager (as defined by this research) will improve their individual actions in emergency management prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery. Improvements in the management of emergency events may drive improved public safety outcomes across Australia.

A process of professionalisation is required to achieve recognition of both emergency management as a profession in Australia and the emergency manager as a professional. The process of professionalisation will move emergency management from a vocation to a profession. Professionalisation will provide a means of applying the human capacities identified in this research to the future management of emergency events. This research proposes that the application of the Emergency Management T-Shaped Transdisciplinary Model, in conjunction with certification and education, will support the professionalisation journey of the Australian emergency manager.