Evaluation of Coordination of Emergency Response Team through the Social Network Analysis. Case Study: Oil and Gas Refinery

BACKGROUND The purpose of this study was to examine the cohesions status of the coordination within response teams in the emergency response team (ERT) in a refinery. METHODS For this study, cohesion indicators of social network analysis (SNA; density, degree centrality, reciprocity, and transitivity) were utilized to examine the coordination of the response teams as a whole network. The ERT of this research, which was a case study, included seven teams consisting of 152 members. The required data were collected through structured interviews and were analyzed using the UCINET 6.0 Social Network Analysis Program. RESULTS The results reported a relatively low number of triple connections, poor coordination with key members, and a high level of mutual relations in the network with low density, all implying that there were low cohesions of coordination in the ERT. CONCLUSION The results showed that SNA provided a quantitative and logical approach for the examination of the coordination status among response teams and it also provided a main opportunity for managers and planners to have a clear understanding of the presented status. The research concluded that fundamental efforts were needed to improve the presented situations.