How to Manage a Responding Process for the Emergency with Crisis Based on SSM: A Case of Applying this New Approach to an Emergency Situation on the Factories in the Chemical Complex

This presentation considers a possibility of applying the new theory, which Dr. Uchiyama presented in “Towards A New Approach how to respond to the emergency with crisis using SSM”, to management of responding the emergency situation.

Firstly, the essence of this new theory is described by showing a case of the educational program of disaster nursing using Soft Systems Methodology (hereafter SSM). That essence is the proactive process of shaping readiness so that the persons as a group who are involved in the emergency situation can take a coherent action.

This program was carried out from May, 2009 to January, 2011 and about thirty nurses of various generations participated in this program from various fields. They learned that the essence of daily nursing was equivalent to the essence of disaster nursing by co-owning their experiential knowledge relevant to nursing through the process of accommodation (live with different individual worldviews based on co-owning tacit knowledge). And they carried out sensemaking to the disaster nursing based on consideration of relation which these two kinds of nursing were seamless, although the disaster nursing heretofore had been different from the daily nursing. Then it was revealed in their engaging in the disaster nursing at “The 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku Earthquake” that their readiness for being involved in the situation of disaster nursing was shaped in the process of this sensemaking.

The presenter comprehended through this experience that the process of co-owning an experiential knowledge through an accommodation process became to be a seedbed where persons who were involved in a crisis situation were shaped their readiness for responding crisis as a group at normal condition.

Based on this case, the second case is described. In this case, managers who were engaged in plant operation and human resource management of the chemical material plants in the chemical complex carried out sensemaking of responding to the emergency with crisis using SSM. They learned through the accommodation process that it was possible to carry out sensemaking of its responding as not only a problem on the level of technology but also a problem on shaping readiness in action. And they changed their way of appreciating of the responding to emergency with crisis in the plant.

Finally, the impacts of management of the responding process for the emergency are considered through the process of reflection on this learning about shaping readiness for emergency through accommodation.

Keywords: Emergency management, Crisis management, Soft Systems Methodology