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  • LEGITIMIZATION OF TECHNICAL PROCESS AND UNDERSTANDING UTILITIES’ ROLE IN URBAN EMERGENCY RESPONSE FOR DISPLACED PERSONS
Title: LEGITIMIZATION OF TECHNICAL PROCESS AND UNDERSTANDING UTILITIES’ ROLE IN URBAN EMERGENCY RESPONSE FOR DISPLACED PERSONS
This paper presents employee perspectives from two German water and wastewater utilities regarding their involvement in providing water and wastewater services for displaced persons in urban emergency accommodations. In 2015, 28 European countries received over two million applications for asylum, almost three times more than the previous year. According to the UNHCR, this rapid increase in population has reached the highest recorded displacement in the world’s history, even greater than that proceeding the Second World War. The German utilities are meeting these new demands; however, we lack knowledge regarding the impacts on the utilities as they provide water and wastewater services to the suddenly increased population. As a result of this gap, this study looks at how water and wastewater utilities perceive their involvement in this process and in what ways they legitimize their provision of water and wastewater services to displaced persons. Understanding this legitimation equips both utilities and other stakeholders to better understand how utilities regard their role in urban emergency response. Results show that individuals use their past experience (comprehensibility legitimacy) and understanding of socially acceptable technical processes (procedural legitimacy) to legitimize their role in the crisis organization. Comprehensibility legitimacy is used to express certainty in managing the technical challenges of providing water and wastewater services, while procedural legitimacy is used to justify improvisation to navigate gaps in design and construction guidelines for water and wastewater connections. Implications of this study suggest that although employees are confident in their ability to handle the situation, there are also opportunities for improving response in the future, such as creating more technical guidance for design water and wastewater connections for displaced persons in renovated buildings and new developments.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1624417
PAR ID:
10050238
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
15th Engineering Project Organization Conference
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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