Global Risk Management: The Role of Collective Cognition in Response to COVID-19

The rise and spread of Covid-19 in the beginning of 2020 presents a once-in-a-century challenge and opportunity for decision makers, managers, scholars, and citizens to understand the risks, mitigate its impact and prepare for future crises.

Drawing on a global network of scholars, this book presents a comparative analysis of ten nations’ response to a global pandemic, while operating nominally under the framework of the World Health Organization. The book introduces the concept of ‘collective cognition’ as an analytic lens for examining the nations’ response to Covid-19 during the first six months of the emerging pandemic (January – June 2020) and draws out insights for improving systems of global risk management.

This book addresses four primary audiences: policy-makers and leaders in nations struggling to contain viruses while guiding their societies under threat; academic researchers, students, and educators engaged in preparing the next generation of professionals committed to investigating emerging risk: managers of non-profit and private organizations that operate and maintain the networks of social, technical, and economic services that are essential to functioning communities; and the informed general public interested in understanding this extraordinary sequence of events and in managing the novel risk of COVID-19 in a more informed, responsible way.

Louise K. Comfort is Professor Emerita and former Director of the Center for Disaster Management, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh, PA, USA.

Mary Lee Rhodes is Associate Professor of Public Management at Trinity Business School and Director of the Centre for Social Innovation, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.