Identifying critical success factors in emergency management using a fuzzy DEMATEL method

Since unexpected natural disasters have been causing enormous losses all over the world, emergency management is receiving more and more attention recently. However, most existing studies generally focus on optimization models of specific activities instead of studying the system as a whole. Moreover, the performance of emergency management may be affected by various different factors and it is always difficult for the practitioners to improve all aspects at the same time. In view of the constraint of resources, this paper brings forward an imperative issue on how to enhance emergency management by segmenting complex influencing factors into groups to improve them in a stepwise way. To address this concern involving the vagueness of human judgments, an effective method that combines fuzzy logic and decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) is used. Considering the interdependence among factors, this fuzzy DEMATEL method forms a structural model and then visualizes the causal relationships among factors through a cause-effect relationship diagram. Then according to the results of proposed method, critical success factor (CSF) of emergency management is figured out. Finally, 5 CSFs are identified out of 20 influencing factors, and all factors can be achieved in a stepwise way for better promoting the effectiveness and efficiency of emergency management.

Research highlights
► Different from other studies focusing on certain specific activities, this paper studies the emergency management system as a whole and identifies CSF in a systematic perspective.
► Besides, according to the cause-effect relationship among factors, this paper also discusses the CSF in a lower operational level and offers a stepwise way to continuously enhance the emergency management system.
► The hybrid method proposed in this paper is also applicable to all other systems with complex factors.