Contingent coordination in crisis: Experiences of Qingdao control command in governing COVID-19 in China

ABSTRACT

Coordination is one of the most challenging crisis management issues governments face worldwide. In this contribution, we examine the coordination mechanism applied by Qingdao control command in China to fight against COVID-19. Its coordination is implemented contingently via five different approaches achieving compromises through a centralized tiered meeting system, developing standard operating procedures through issuing documents, encouraging pragmatic problem-solving through improvisation, establishing routines through finding shortcuts, and following commands and suggestions from higher-up. Two perspectives, the structural-institutional and cultural perspectives, have been applied to explain the choice of the contingent coordination mechanism. Our study contributes to the existing crisis coordination literature through substantiating the approaches underlying contingent coordination and providing a preliminary explanation of it. © 2023 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.