Disaster management digitally transformed: Exploring the impact and key determinants from the UK national disaster management experience

With the increasing social and economic devastation caused by disasters around the world, the international community and country-level National Disaster Management (NDM) authorities have placed improving their ways to mitigate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters as a top priority. Technological advancements and the 4th Industrial Revolution are critical tools to help achieve this. However, they also present many challenges to traditional NDM systems by altering the fundamental operational, organizational, and social dynamics of conventional disaster management. Currently, there is a lack of research that studies these aspects beyond technology and examines the impact of digital transformation on the full life cycle of disaster management on the national level. Therefore, this research fills this gap by integrating interdisciplinary concepts from different research fields including Disaster Management, Information Systems, and Business Management to understand the impact and determinants of digital transformation in NDM systems. To achieve this, the research uses the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework and conducts semi-structured interviews with UK NDM experts. The results show that the impact of digital transformation on NDM is profound, paradoxical, multi-directional, and driven by a multitude of driving forces. This research makes many significant contributions to research and practice. Theoretically, this research expands the TOE framework beyond its original underpinnings by uncovering a new set of disaster-context determinants. It also presents an innovative Layered Cake FAST (Foundations-Approach-Strategy-Technology) Model that offers a unique roadmap for NDM on how to handle its digital transformation journey. Practically, the research presents several sets of useful expert-recommended actions.