• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.69-79
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• 2015

Among public organizations, does variation in organizational structure explain variation in public managers' leadership styles (e.g., transformational and transactional leadership)? The study of leadership in public organizations is increasingly an area of scholarly interest partly sparked by movements to reform public organizations, particularly in the context of emergency management. There is, for example, a need for effective leadership that can help organizations respond to disasters (Kapucu et al. 2010; Van Wart and Kapucu 2011; Stern 2013). There are numerous documented cases where the lack of leadership skills has been linked to major social and economic losses as a result of poor disaster response (e.g., Hurricane Katrina in the U.S.). Yet, leadership is a complex concept and numerous theoretical frameworks have been developed to help explain it (Van Wart 2005). Practically speaking, the existence of different theories of leadership suggests that public managers can decide to exercise various styles of leadership. The style of leadership that a public manager exhibits matters because some styles are perceived to be more effective than others (Trottier et al. 2008). While the effects of leadership have been extensively studied, antecedents or predictors of leadership style have received little scholarly attention (Wright and Pandey 2009; Nielsen and Cleal 2011). The purpose of this research note then is to explore the potential causal relationship between the structure of an organization and the ability of a public manager to exercise transformational leadership in the context of emergency management in two Asian countries: South Korea and Japan. This research note consists of three main sections. The following section explores the relationship between leadership and organizational structure. The second section examines how certain concepts of leadership and organizational structure were applied in two case studies of disaster response. The final section presents some directions for future research.

• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.362-375
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• 2012

Tourist hotels are equipped with facilities such as accommodation and restaurants, exercise, recreation. Unspecified guests, visitors and management of tourist hotels are very vulnerable on the casualties and property losses due to fire peril exist. In this study, we analysis that the fire statistics status of tourist hotels from 2001 to 2010. And the 15 cases of a large hotel fire are reviewed. The total number of fires on hotel are consist of a hotel rooms fire(33.2%), a restaurant kitchen fire(11.8%). And the major causes of the fire are an electrical fire (40.8%), a cigarette fire (14.5%) and a hot-work fire (9.2%). In case study, the fire wall defect and combustible materials are major fire loss causes for 10year. Each tourist hotels are needed a development of suitable fire risk management and a field operations. A hotel is required an active fire risk management on a preventive inspection, an education and training, and a preventive maintenance. It is necessary that a fire wall maintenance to prevent of the spread of a fire and a sprinkler installation of whole area to protect fire. And it is very important an emergency response for evacuation of guest, and operate emergency procedures on a fire or emergency situation.