Knowledge dynamics in a state of emergency: A case study

In this paper, we set our focus on the information society on the community level in connection with information, learning and knowledge exchange. For purposes of this research, we used several different methods, binded in the information technology toolkit. We carefully studied regional and local standard operating procedures in case of flood events. To be able to continue with the research we used statistical methods to compare four flood events in the region. We collected information about entities in distress from the Administration for civil protection and disaster relief's database and created a fuzzy system for assessing learning and information sharing capacity of the communities. Further, we conducted interviews with the members of households (entities), who directly faced at least two flood events and the vice commander of local civil protection, to be able to assess entities` learning and assess the presence of microscale information society. Finally, we used new insights to design learning based social information communities, incentives, based on business process management, using TAD methodology and the iGrafx simulation tool. The paper provides us with the insight of, how important it is to have a stable microscale information society network, present in the scope of local flood response activities. At the same time, we revealed the link between the learning and microscale information society. Not only is experiential learning important for fostering information communities during emergencies, but also a more systematic approach to flood resilience learning and self-reliance is important.