Patterns of Learning: A Systemic Analysis of Emergency Response Operations in the North Sea through the Lens of Resilience Engineering

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Generally the authors present a rather interesting study of three cases of an emergency management organization handling covid incidents with a relevant linking to current theoretical concepts in adaptive capacity and learning. The article should however be improved in its traceability from methods, structure of writing, and would need a general sharpening of the argumentation and a clearer communication of what points the authors wish to make.

 

Line 104-109, the concept of samhandling is used and linked to other concepts too quickly, and not explained properly first.

 

Line 124-147 introduce a myriad of concepts that are presented rather chaotically. The authors are advised to present a clear line of reasoning and articulate the points they wish to make in a more structured way.

 

Table 1: Scheme 53 as a category seems a typo. The category name Information processing seems rather narrow for the barriers listed in this category, especially for the first two in the list.

 

The order of the steps in the procedure that was followed for the interviews seems to jump around unexpectedly. The description starts at line 256 and then talks about the interview process, then backtracks to the invitations and initial steps in the interview at line 278 and onwards, for example. A slight restructuring of the text seems necessary.

 

The explanation of what the DRMG are comes first in Data analysis from line 292-306. The introduction of the DRMG does not seem to be a natural part of Data analysis. The reader would need to understand this much earlier, possibly in the Introduction or in the Method where the authors explain how the DRMG were used.

 

The authors describe that they applied cognitive task analysis (CTA) in several steps, investigating critical decision-making and knowledge audit, mentioning triangulation, but the traceability to the findings that are described is very low. Sometimes it is mentioned whether the findings come from interviews or some of the other methods involved, but mostly this information is missing. No quotes from interviews are presented. No information about whether there were any contradictions or differences in opinion between participants is presented. No methodological reflections or discussion are presented, elaborating how the triangulation enabled the authors to arrive at the findings. Ethnography and observations by one of the authors involvement in the studied organization is mentioned but reflections on how this affected the results and the impact that these ethnographics have had on the generation of the findings is not discussed. The authors are recommended to extend the article with both factual description of the findings generation in order to improve traceability, and with reflection on the methodology.

 

It is not quite clear what the authors aim to communicate with Figure 1. As a reader one wonders if they are suggesting a general pattern that can be generalized or drawn conclusions from, or just aim to provide a representation of the processes identified during the data collection. What should the reader learn from this pattern? Thus it is not quite clear what the Figure contributes to the understanding of the case and what it adds to the research knowledge base. Also, the right column with tacit/explicit knowledge is barely addressed in the text, and it is not clear what the authors imply how these are part of the pattern.

 

The authors are recommended to elaborate on the knowledge increment on the DRMG, and feed this into the discussion and conclusions, so that learning on the applicability of the DRMG can take place. The interviews were based on the DRMG but this loop is not closed by the authors. I.e., address what this study adds to the evaluation and usefulness of the DRMG, and how the DRMG can potentially be improved or what needs to be changed/added in their content. Especially interesting would be framing the current study in relation to other documented applications of the DRMG, some of which have some overlap with the methods and findings of the current study:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10111-019-00587-y

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1468-5973.12373

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-edit/10.1201/9781351174664-166/improving-resilience-management-critical-infrastructures%E2%80%94strategies-practices-across-air-traffic-management-healthcare-cedrini-mancini-rosi-mandarino-giorgi-herrera-branlat-pettersson-jonson-save-ruscio

 

The reasoning in the two paragraphs on lines 567-586 is difficult to follow. The point on samhandling is not communicated clearly, and the point in the last sentence (line 576-578) is ambiguous. The following paragraph is also ambiguous. For example, “It” on line 585 is ambiguous in what it refers to. Please restructure the argumentation and make the points to be communicated more clear.

 

The Conclusions are mainly about future research, but the take home message in terms of the findings that can be generalized for, for example, Resilience Engineering, the DRMG, and Organizational Learning are unclear. Potentially reflections on the methodology used may also lead to conclusions. The authors are recommended to reflect about these and add clear conclusions to this section.

 

Typo’s:

Line 48 ”The goal of as such”?

The use of spaces before, within and after references is inconsistent.

”Sense making” should probably be spelled ”sensemaking” or ”sense-making”.

Line 42, 51, it is unclear what ”the system” refers to.

Line 106 nuances, why plural?

Line 122 ”as a the”.

Line 131 topics’ priorities?

Line 139, ”Weick has a concept”, too informal language.

Line 142 [x].

Concept Cards are sometimes abbreviated Cc, sometimes CC.

Line 563 verb or word missing, ”requires”: why singular?

 

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We appreciate the effort and time the reviewer spent on reviewing our manuscript. We have considered the provided comments to improve the quality of our re-submitted manuscript. Changes are highlighted in blue font in the manuscript in the revised version of the manuscript. Detailed respond to the Rviewers comments are provided in the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The article does not answer the questions indicated in the introduction. It is only an overview of activities. Which are interesting, but do not increase scientific knowledge in this area. It seems that the authors try to prove their thesis in a way based on observations, not necessarily supported by scientific evidence. This should be presented in the concept of the authors' subjective feelings.

The authors extensively describe the reference to the essence of the problem, but later do not use it. In particular, they present a detailed analysis of the existing situations, but do not indicate the scientific observations obtained (referred to the used literature sources) and refer only to the final conclusion, without indicating the details of the differences and similarities in the analyzed situations. The user of the study knows what solutions were used, but does not know whether the solutions were appropriate (correct) or not. And how did this influence the thesis posed in the title.

Recognizing that this is an introductory article for a broader analysis of the problem (as indicated by the authors), it should be considered useful, however, requiring more detail.

A literature source requires explanation: Boin et al. [x]: line 142.

Author Response

We thank you for your time in reviewing our manuscript. We have considered your comments to improve the quality of our re-submitted manuscript. Changes are highlighted in blue font in the revised manuscript. A detailed response to the Reviewer’s comments is provided in the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors, 

 

The article  Patterns of learning: A systemic analysis of emergency response operations
in the North Sea through the lens of resilience
engineering is very interesting, but the
Figure 1. Pattern of learning, sources and stances tweaking these boxes to simple.
Work written correctly.
Clearly presented study and conclusions.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, thanks for your kind and encouraging words and your time in reviewing our manuscript. We acknowledge that figure 1. Pattern of learning is a simple illustration. Following your comment, we modified figure 1 and added some clarification in the revised version.

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments are in file. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reveiwer,

We thank you for your time in reviewing our manuscript. We have considered your comments to improve the quality of our re-submitted manuscript. Changes are highlighted in blue font in the revised manuscript. A detailed response to the Reviewer’s comments is provided in the attached file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors.

Thank you for sending your comments to my review and making changes to the publication. In my opinion, they are very important, having a positive impact on the substantive value of the study.

Please consider whether it wasn't worth specifying even more clearly that these are the results of "preliminary observations" to indicate the seriousness of the problem and the need to look into the problem (this is partly accomplished by referring to the issues raised).

Maybe the title should be: Examples of learning patterns: recommendations for systemic analysis …. or only: Recommendations for systemic analysis ….

But this is only a suggestion that does not require consideration.

In my opinion, figure 1 in the old version was more readable.

Best regards.