ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the perceived implementation behavior of counties in the United States with respect to the National Incident Management System (NIMS). The system represents a massive and historic policy mandate designed to restructure, standardize, and thereby unify the efforts of a wide variety of emergency management entities. Specifically, this chapter examines variables identified in the NIMS and policy literature that might influence the behavioral intentions and actual behavior of counties. It discusses both how counties intend to implement NIMS and how they actually implement the system: policy characteristics related to NIMS, implementer views, and a measure of local capacity. One additional variable—inter-organizational characteristics—was found to influence behavior, as well as standardization in emergency management.
