Stakeholders’ approaches to disaster risk reduction in built environment

Abstract

Purpose

In disaster risk reduction (DRR), it is important to realise stakeholders’ approaches against disasters in the built environment. The purpose of this paper is to explore why stakeholders take proactive and/or reactive approaches in DRR.

Design/methodology/approach

Using a review of existent literature, this work scrutinises disaster theories and their applications in the built environment to develop a theoretical framework for perceiving stakeholders’ proactive and/or reactive approaches in DRR.

Findings

Stakeholders’ organisational attributes – power, legitimacy and urgency – and decision-making paradigms – value maximisation and intuitive reasoning – are fundamental factors affecting stakeholders’ approaches against disasters. Power and legitimacy of stakeholders result in a proactive approach if stakeholders consider value maximisation paradigm in their decision-making process. Powerful and legitimate stakeholders may take reactive approaches because of intuitive reasoning paradigm. Stakeholders may shift from a reactive to proactive approach and vice versa based on the combination of urgency attribute and decision-making paradigms.

Research limitations/implications

It is essential to consider the classification of respective stakeholders in applying the idea of this paper. Furthermore, this paper does not attempt to validate the proposed theoretical framework empirically, but it combines stakeholder and decision-making theories by which this could be undertaken.

Originality/value

Little attention has been paid to systematic theorising in managing stakeholders’ approaches against disasters. Furthermore, many researchers have focused on similar underlying theories and heuristics in the context of DRR. Thus, this paper introduces a theoretical framework to examine stakeholders’ proactive and/or reactive approaches in the built environment, by synthesising stakeholder and decision-making theories.

Citation

Mohammad H. Mojtahedi, S. and Lan Oo, B. (2014), "Stakeholders’ approaches to disaster risk reduction in built environment", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 23 No. 4, pp. 356-369. https://doi.org/10.1108/DPM-11-2013-0209