Purpose The purpose of this study is to identify what is practiced during collaboration exercises and possible facilitators for inter-organisational collaboration.

Design/methodology/approach Interviews with 23 participants from four exercises in Sweden were carried out during autumn 2011. Interview data were subjected to qualitative content analysis.

Findings Findings indicate that the exercises tend to focus on intra-organisational routines and skills, rather than developing collaboration capacities. What the participants practiced depended on roles and order of arrival at the exercise. Exercises contributed to practicing leadership roles, which was considered essential since crises are unpredictable and require inter-organisational decision-making.

Originality/value The results of this study indicate that the ability to identify boundary objects, such as injured/patients, was found to be important in order for collaboration to occur. Furthermore, lessons learned from exercises could benefit from inter-organisational evaluation. By introducing and reinforcing certain elements and distinct aims of the exercise, the proactive function of collaboration exercises can be clarified.

This study aimed to elucidate exercise participants’ understanding of critical aspects of organizing and implementation of collaboration exercises with police, fire department and ambulance services. The focus is critical aspects in exercises that have, or are expected to have, bearing on the participants’ ability to learn. Collaboration exercises are used as a tool to reinforce and develop the preparedness for future incidents. The need for such exercises was usually advocated after critique to actions during largescale real-life incidents. The study had a qualitative approach and is based on phenomenographic analysis of interviews with participants from four exercises with different scenarios. The identified critical aspects of exercises were related to realism, acceptance for mistakes, exercise extent and aims and opportunities for joint discussions. The management of an accident can be described to a large extent depend on the organizations’ joint ability to adapt to the prevailing situation and to collaborate. For exercises to contribute to these abilities, they could benefit from shifting the focus to how to organize exercises that allow participants to test different decisions and actions, with less emphasis on the choice of scenario.

Denna studie syftade till att belysa övningsdeltagarnas uppfattningar av hur samverkansövningar mellan polis, räddningstjänst och ambulans organiseras och genomförs. Särskilt fokuserades kritiska aspekter i övningar som har, eller förväntas ha, betydelse för deltagarnas möjligheter att lära. Samverkansövningar används som ett verktyg för att förstärka och utveckla gemensam beredskap inför framtida olyckor och katastrofer. Behovet av övningar på olika nivåer brukar aktualiseras efter kritik mot hanteringen av omfattande verkliga händelser. Studien hade en kvalitativ ansats och byggde på fenomenografisk analys av intervjuer med deltagare från fyra övningar med olika scenarier. Analysen visade att realism i övningarna, utrymme för misstag, övningarnas omfattning och syfte samt möjlighet till uppföljning uppfattades som särskilt kritiska aspekter. Hanteringen av en olycka beror i stor utsträckning på organisationernas förmåga att anpassa sig till den rådande situationen och utfallet av samverkan mellan organisationer. För att övningar ska bidra till dessa förmågor och fylla ett proaktivt syfte, bör fokus tydligare riktas mot organisering av övningar i syfte att ge deltagarna utrymme att pröva olika beslut och ageranden, och med mindre betoning på scenarioval.

To prepare emergency response organisations for collaborative work in unpredictable and dynamic situations, various types of exercises are widely used. Still, our knowledge of collaboration exercises with emergency response students is limited. This study aimed to contribute to this field by exploring boundaries that emerged between collaborating organisations in exercise activities and how these boundaries could be understood for learning. Drawing on the Akkerman and Bakker framework of boundaries as learning mechanisms, this study explored an exercise, including full-scale scenarios and seminars with students from the police, ambulance and rescue services education in Sweden. Thematic analysis of interviews and observations illustrated boundaries that emerged regarding vocabulary, prioritisation, roles, knowledge gaps and overlapping responsibilities across organisations. Rather than dissolving boundaries, this article suggests that boundaries can be utilised in exercises to support the students to contextualise their knowledge in relation to the demands of collaborative work. The concepts boundary work and boundary awareness were suggested to capture more generally the dynamics of learning in exercise contexts.

Collaboration in emergency work is challenging on many levels. The unforeseen and temporary nature of incidents presents basic challenges. Another important challenge is boundaries between specialized and autonomous emergency service organizations. We need to know more about how exercises are performed to increase the individuals and organizations preparedness for future joint response work. The aim of this study was to explore how boundary work is carried out at the incident site during exercises, and how boundary awareness is developed based on this boundary work. The analytic focus was on how boundaries were identified, negotiated and managed in the participants work. Empirically, full-scale exercises involving police, ambulance and rescue services and with repetition of practical scenarios and joint-reflection seminars are studied. Much of the work in the exercises was performed within distinct areas of expertise, in accordance with concrete routines, skills and responsibilities. Boundary work was often organized in the form of distribution of labour or creating chains of actions. The exercises shed light on challenges related to other aspects of emergency response,such as a lack of resources, diverging primary responsibilities, time-criticality and hazardous environments. The design allowed participants to explicate boundaries, test and discuss alternative solutions, and to visualize the effects of different solutions as the scenarios were repeated. The boundaries that were identified were often of institutional character, and were also related to the specific scenarios and to the actions taken in the activities. By integrating real-life experiences of collaborative work in the exercise, the exercise gained a certain meaning that was essential for the participants to develop boundary awareness.