**1. Introduction**

In 1996, Karl Weick [1] published his allegory of organizational studies "Drop your Tools." In his paper, Weick points to 10 possible reasons why 27 wildland firefighters lost their lives when they failed to follow orders to drop their tools and run when overrun by exploding fires. His study is based on values developed by James D. Thompson [2] and data collected from two main wildland fire disasters: Mann Gulch in Montana (1949) and South Canyon in Colorado (1994). Weick shows that the willingness of endangered firefighters to leave equipment behind and run was overdetermined due to deeply rooted routines and identity. An important conclusion was that fighting wildland-fires requires skills in cross-sectional collaboration to break familiar and iterative routines during extra-ordinary situations. Such skills develop through collaboration exercises. There exists an assumption in emergency preparedness that exercises lead to better team-integration and more efficient problem solving. However, though few in number, all relevant international studies indicate that the perceived effects of exercises by participants are rather limited [3–7].

As the effects of collaboration exercises and specially wildland-fire collaboration exercises are little researched, this should be considered a gap in the collaboration literature. As a contribution to closing this gap, this study focuses on the perceived effects of such exercises with an emphasis on learning and usefulness. Further, this study has a practical utility value, as it defines perceived problem areas, which can help exercise organizers and managers to further develop collaboration learning and usefulness. The following research questions were developed: (1) To what extent is there a relationship between participation in Norwegian wildland-fire collaboration exercises and perceived

level of learning? (2) To what extent is there a relationship between participation in Norwegian wildland-fire collaboration exercises and perceived level of utility? A collaboration exercise is here defined as an exercise where multiple emergency stakeholders come together to develop preparedness, team-integration, and behavioral response [8]. In Norway, where this data is collected, collaboration is one out of four national emergency preparedness principles. The principle imposes on all relevant emergency stakeholders the commitment to ensure the best possible collaboration with other relevant actors across all phases of emergency preparedness [9]. The three other principles of responsibility, equality, and proximity are also formalized in the other Scandinavian countries, but thus far Norway is the only country that has adopted collaboration by law. This paper first starts out by reviewing literature on collaboration, learning, and utility. Second, it outlines the study's materials and methods, before summarizing and presenting the study's results. The discussion section then describes and interprets the findings, with the final section summarizing the answers to the stated research questions, outlining the theoretical and practical implications, and making recommendations.
