Fuzzy logic: A link for behavioral computer simulations of collaboration in emergency management

Emergencies are events that vary in complexity and dynamically shift along different phases of evolution, requiring different types of participants. Emergency management is an interdisciplinary field that involves multiple organizations holding different mandates and structural chains of command. This poses a challenge for collaboration in the way strategic problems are solved at each stage of the emergency, given that they may not follow the traditional normative linear patterns of decision making. To address this query, this work explores the application of fuzzy logic to characterize the problem solving approach used – coordination, cooperation, or collaboration -, with the level of complexity of the emergency and the type of inter-organizational interaction. Of special interest here is the capacity offered by fuzzy logic to operationalize experiences and perceptions of expert emergency managers. Fuzzy logic provides the framework to model these elements under flexible patterns of interaction. In addition, fuzzy logic allows connecting diverse epistemological fields such as behavioural cognitive psychology and management, and linking them to computer sciences and systems engineering. Hence, the results from this paper presents fuzzy logic from a modeling perspective that aims to contribute to achieve an efficient inter organizational emergency management response along the different phases of the crisis, by rendering fuzzy logic models of inter organizational coordination, cooperation and collaboration, which can then be applied to develop behavioral computer simulations. The expected contribution of this document is to facilitate the interaction within and across diverse fields of study involved in emergency management, by translating and interpreting their individual contributions into fuzzy logic models that can inform and complement the interdisciplinary effort.