91传媒 faculty co-authors timely study on future emergency management policy
Contact: Sarah Nicholas
STARKVILLE, Miss.鈥 Research on public procurement in the wake of COVID-19 is the focus of a 91传媒 faculty member鈥檚 paper now featured in a recent edition of the Journal of Emergency Management.
Sawsan Abutabenjeh, an associate professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, co-authored the article as part of a multi-university collaboration investigating how the government鈥檚 pandemic response to assembling and allocating resources was impacted by emergency conditions, existing systemic problems and value conflicts.
Research for the joint paper was gleaned from the U.S.鈥檚 COVID-19 response compared against information collected from government-coordinated responses following the 9/11 attacks in 2001, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the H1N1 swine flu in 2009.
鈥淪upplying the pandemic response: the importance of public procurement,鈥 published in April, was co-authored by 91传媒鈥檚 Abutabenjeh, , University of Washington, Lachezar Anguelov, The Evergreen State College, Ana-Maria Dimand, Boise State University, and Evelyn Rodriguez-Plesa, a city employee for Sunny Isles Beach, Florida, who at the time was a doctoral student at Florida International University.
鈥淚t is always a challenge to respond to natural disasters and emergencies, and from the COVID-19 pandemic we expect to learn lessons related to a more centralized procurement model, the utilization of strategic sourcing, the need for more accountable and equitable emergency procurement, and a push toward e-procurement to increase efficiency, reduce costs and speed up the purchase of critical emergency commodities,鈥 Abutabenjeh said.
The researchers suggest the rapid global transmission of COVID-19 demonstrated 鈥渨eaknesses in government procurement of essential supplies, included a frustrated coordinate response and fragmentation between local, state and federal efforts.鈥
鈥淭he paper highlights that after 9/11, the government聽improved radio systems聽to enhance communication among government agencies, and after聽Hurricane Katrina the federal government聽passed new policies to ensure emergency procurement processes were more accountable鈥攁fter unnecessarily buying temporary beds, trailers and portable school buildings,鈥 Abutabenjeh said. 鈥淎nd,聽during the H1N1 swine flu in 2009-2010, the federal government set up聽platforms to include information about critical supplies to speed up the distribution of vaccines.
鈥淎s we learned from the case studies, years after the actual emergencies, new management policies and innovative technologies popped up to help avoid repeating similar problems in subsequent disasters.鈥
An 91传媒 faculty member since 2016, Abutabenjeh鈥檚 research has appeared in several journals including聽Public Works Management and Policy, Journal of Public Procurement, International Journal of Public Administration, and Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting and Financial Management.
She received her Ph.D. from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia in 2014. From Hashemite University in Zarqa, Jordan, Abutabenjeh earned her MBA in 2006 and her bachelor鈥檚 degree in 2004.
Part of the College of Arts and Sciences, the Department of Political Science and Public Administration is online at .
91传媒 is Mississippi鈥檚 leading university, also available online at聽.