“I have my daily duties and then there are the crisis and risk issues in a kind of sideline track /.../ this area tends to be postponed until the summer when we have more time to address it.”

This quotation is from an interview with a Swedish municipal leader. It suggests that everyday work and crisis management are seen as separate tasks. Other leaders, however, see crisis management as part of their regular duties and as integrated with their personal values. It is of interest how municipal leaders perceive crisis management as they will react and act on their perception.

This thesis aims to gain knowledge about how leaders at the municipal level, holding the role as crisis manager, perceive and experience crisis management in the preparedness, acute, and post-crisis phases.

The thesis demonstrates that psychological theories and concepts, especially motivational factors, are of importance for understanding the municipal leaders’ perceptions of their role as crisis manager as well as their challenges, and provides knowledge of value to crisis management development. 

The purpose of this thesis is to gain knowledge about how leaders holding the role as crisis manager at the Swedish municipal level perceive and experience crisis management in different phases.

The thesis comprises four papers (Papers I-IV) based on empirical data. The sample consisted of relevant municipal leaders. Paper I, Paper II, and Paper IV were based on qualitative methods of data collection and analysis, and Paper III on quantitative data. Paper I presents a theoretical model that highlights the complex evaluations underlying managers´ decisions and actions in real-life crisis situations. Paper II contributes further knowledge on how to improve evaluation and thus how learning from crisis experience can be developed. In particular, the importance of  evaluation and the value of group reflection in evaluation are demonstrated. Additionally, Paper II identifies motivational aspects during an event. In Paper III perceived preparedness is analysed in terms of three aspects: perceived municipal preparedness, perceived individual preparedness and motivation. These aspects are explained by different psychological theories and concepts and may serve to understand the driving forces for motivation to work with and to develop crisis preparedness. Paper IV focuses on motivation for preparedness efforts and contributes a model demonstrating the close links between different motivational factors and how these influence one another, as well as emphasizing the central role of experience and the strong role of personal factors in both supporting and diminishing motivation.

In sum, this thesis demonstrates how psychological theories and concepts are important for understanding the municipal leaders’ perceptions of their role as crisis managers. In addition, the knowledge gained in this thesis can be useful for promoting crisis preparedness.