Benefits and Limitations of the Social Network Analysis When Explaining Instances of Ineffective Communication in Two Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosives Simulations

Social Network Analysis (SNA) was performed on a number of emergency response scenarios, including here on two Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosives (CBRNE) simulations. However, little evidence exists in the literature pertaining to the explanation of communication breakdowns using SNA. In this paper, the SNAs of two CBRNE simulations were compared and the differences in structure were related to instances of ineffective communication. Study 1 had two tiers in the response (commanders and first responders) and Study 2 had three tiers, where Operations (Ops) officers were added between the commanders and first responders. A higher percentage of communication breakdowns were found in Study 2, possibly as a result of the additional layer. However, the two studies had different scenarios and CBRNE responders, both possibly confounding the findings. Researchers using SNA are provided with a convenient representation and summary of team functioning. However basic SNA does not help researchers to distinguish between effective communication and breakdown. Communication breakdowns were attributed to long multi-hop communications, which seldom occurred in the present studies because of the small number of participants in the network, and the large number of communications among them.