ABSTRACT
Four case studies, each representing organisations embedded in varied spheres, seek to understand the factors contributing to institutional emergence and change in the new policy arena of disaster management. This chapter defocuses from national-level disaster management organisations that have been the target of the existing limited analysis and instead focuses on subnational organisations representing various institutional spheres, such as the economic, regulatory, educational, and scientific. The analysis explores both exogenous and endogenous factors that contribute to institutional emergence and change, such as leadership, science and technology, international stakeholders, organisational values, and culture, among others. The influence of exogenous macro institutional processes on each of the organisations and the role of leadership in the customisation and contextualisation of these institutionalisation processes, which largely determine the organisation’s contribution to building transformative disaster resilience, are explored. We also identify the endogenous factors that contribute to varied outcomes in each of the organisations, such as leadership, organisational culture and ethos, and the larger institutional framework in which each of the organisations was embedded. The predominance of technological and professional interventions, institutional constraints within the government sector, and target and outcome-oriented approaches, among others, were the key challenges encountered in building transformative disaster resilience.
