key: cord-0750897-a525bu7w
authors: van den Oord, Steven; Vanlaer, Niels; Marynissen, Hugo; Brugghemans, Bert; Van Roey, Jan; Albers, Sascha; Cambré, Bart; Kenis, Patrick
title: Network of networks: preliminary lessons from the Antwerp Port Authority on crisis management and network governance to deal with the COVID‐19 pandemic
date: 2020-06-02
journal: Public Adm Rev
DOI: 10.1111/puar.13256
sha: d5f583fe7d27da59e8d82e7b8cccdedbbc7dcf37
doc_id: 750897
cord_uid: a525bu7w

In this article we describe and illustrate what we call a network of networks perspective and map the development of a Lead network of the Antwerp Port Authority that governs various organizations and networks in the port community before and during the COVID‐19 pandemic. We find that setting a collective focus and selective integration to be crucial in the creation and reproduction of an effective system to adequately deal with a wicked problem like the COVID‐19 pandemic. We use the findings on crisis management and network governance to engage practitioners and public policy planners to revisit current design and governance of organizational networks within organizational fields that have been hit by the COVID‐19 pandemic.

 In line with the recently introduced exogenous perspective on whole networks, the notion of network of networks is further elaborated in relation to the scope and nature of the problem faced by that organizational field.

 By changing the structure and network governance mode from a Lead/Network Administration Organization into a Lead network, the Antwerp Port Authority was able to install institutions and structures of authority and collaboration to deal with the scale and complexity of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

A network is a system of three or more organizations (incepted either voluntary or by mandate) that work together to achieve a purpose that none of the participating organizations can achieve independently by themselves (Provan, Fish, and Sydow 2007; Provan and Kenis 2008) .

They are distinct entities with unique identities that require examination as a whole (Provan, Fish, and Sydow 2007; Provan and Kenis 2008; Raab and Kenis 2009) . Despite the prominence of networks in practice, their popularity as a research subject and relevance for society (Raab and Kenis 2009), we still tend to study individual organizations to understand the collective behavior of networks.

Studies on networks from multiple disciplines predominantly focus on organizations and their relations (ego-networks), potentially neglecting, or even misinterpreting the relationship between the details of a network and the larger view of the whole (Bar-Yam 2004; Provan, Fish, and Sydow 2007) . In addition, we sometimes forget that studying networks from a whole network perspective is necessary, but not sufficient alone to understand ‗such issues as how networks evolve, how they are governed, and, ultimately, how collective outcomes might be generated' (Provan, Fish, and Sydow 2007, p.480) . Recently, for instance, it has been argued by Nowell, Hano, and Yang (2019, p. 2) that an external (outside-in) perspective should accompany our dominant internal focus on networks to explain ‗the forces that may shape and constrain action in network settings'. Inspired by this so-called network of networks perspective, this article shows how such a perspective allows for a better grasping of (and hence, dealing with) wicked problems (Cartwright 1987) , a type of problem that an organizational field such as a port or city is frequently encountering.

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The COVID-19 pandemic can be understood as a wicked problem because there are no quick fixes and simple solutions to the problem, every attempt to solve the issue is a -one shot operation‖ and the nature of the problem is not understood until after the formulation of a solution (Conklin 2005) . Wicked problems are ‗defined [1] by a focus, rather than a boundary' (Cartwright 1987, p.93) and successfully managing such problems therefore requires a reassessment of how a group of organizations and networks make temporally sense and structure a wicked problem. The COVID-19 pandemic has therefore directed our attention to a pivotal point in network governance: the connection between complexity and scale (Bar-Yam 2004) . It has led us to acknowledge that an appreciation for the scope and detailed nature of a wicked problem is essential, while simultaneously pairing it with a network solution that matches in scale and complexity (Bar-Yam 2004) .

To understand how to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic then, one needs to comprehend the relation between a larger, complex system and the scope and nature of the problem. We call this larger, complex system an organizational field (Kenis and Knoke 2002) . In the classics of Public Administration literatures the relationship between an organization and its environment has been studied from a variety of perspectives focusing i.e., on selection or adaption to institutional pressures and resource dependence (Aldrich and Pfeffer 1976; Oliver 1991 ). An emphasis on environments is therefore not new. Interestingly, however, network scholars in Public Administration have only recently intensified their efforts to use concepts of the environment as an explanatory factor of the creation, reproduction, or dissolution of networks (Raab, Mannak, and Cambré 2015; Lee, Rethemeyer, and Park 2018; Nowell, Hano, and Yang 2019) .

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Building on DiMaggio and Powell's (1983) understanding of an organizational field, Kenis and Knoke (2002, p.275) link interorganizational relationships and mechanisms such as tie formation and dissolution, to define an -organizational field-net‖ as ‗the configuration of interorganizational relationships among all the organizations that are members of an organizational field. ' The key issue here is on which scale and what details we should consider examining intersections of organizations and networks embedded in a certain environment, since environmental dynamics are crucial in our understanding of the creation and reproduction of both system within as well as the larger system as a whole (cf. Mayntz 1993) .

However, in order to define and examine such larger, complex systems like organizational fields, we need to understand -why‖ organizations and networks come together, cooperate, and consequently create and reproduce such a larger, complex system (Kenis and Knoke 2002; Provan, Fish, and Sydow 2007; Nowell, Hano, and Yang 2019) . We therefore propose that instead of focusing on an organizational network as the unit of analysis (Provan, Fish, and Sydow 2007; Provan and Kenis 2008) , a shift to a collective of networks that is embedded in an organizational field is instructive (cf. Nowell, Hano, and Yang 2019) . This means our unit of observation shifts from one network as separate entity with a unique identity Building upon Maier's (1998) system of systems approach and using Nowell, Hano, and Yang (2019) notion of network of networks, we accordingly define network of networks as an assemblage of networks, which individually may be regarded as subsystems that are Accepted Article This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. operationally and managerial autonomous, but which are part of a larger, complex organizational field by many types of connections and flows (Maier 1998; Provan, Fish, and Sydow 2007; Nowell, Hano, and Yang 2019) .

--- Figure 1 . Around here. ---In this article, we adopt a set-theoretic approach to network of networks, in line with the long-standing recommendation by Christopher Alexander (2015) . In such an approach, a network of networks is ‗best understood as clusters of interconnected structures and practices' of various networks being distinct entities and having unique identities (Fiss 2007 (Fiss , p.1180 Provan and Kenis 2008; Raab et al., 2013) . This means a clean break from the predominant linear paradigm and instead adopting a systemic view in which we assume that ‗patterns of attributes will exhibit different features and lead to different outcomes depending on how they are arranged' (Fiss 2007 (Fiss : 1181 Provan et al., 2007; Provan & Kenis 2008) .

Moreover, we note that often assumptions on the structure and governance of networks are used that are suspect at best for dealing with the complexity that networks bring (Rethemeyer & Hatmaker 2008; Raab, Lemaire, and Provan 2013) . Further, most network studies only employ an endogenous perspective on networks, which in some cases is bound to the performance of an individual organization, a network cluster, or a certain organizational domain (i.e., health or social care), despite the fact that networks by nature are multilevel, multidisciplinary and interdependent (Provan and Milward 2001; Provan, Fish, and Sydow 2007; Raab, Mannak, and Cambré 2015) .

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In particular, scholars often tend to ignore the specific nature of the problems that networks face in their environments (Raab and Milward 2003; McChrystal, Collins, Silverman, and Fussell 2015) . This is an issue, because not fully understanding the interdependence of a collection of smaller systems nor understanding what the larger, complex system is up against makes dealing with a wicked problem like the COVID-19 pandemic very difficult.

As part of a larger applied research project of a collaboration between the fire and emergency services (Antwerp Fire Service, Antwerp Port Authority, police, municipality among others) in the Port of Antwerp and Antwerp Management School (van den Oord, Vriesacker, Brugghemans, Albers, and Marynissen 2019), we focus in this article on how the Port Authority of the Port of Antwerp (Belgium) dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, we examine the network structure and the embeddedness of individual actors of both the crisis management team and the leadership team of the Antwerp Port Authority (APA) to describe how this network managed the crisis and governed the port community composed of various organizations and networks before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. By providing descriptive evidence concerning the development of the overall network structure and the embeddedness of individual actors before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, we aim to ground the notion of network of networks and hope to engage practitioners and public administration scholars to rethink current design and governance of organizational networks within their respective organizational fields that have been hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.

For this article, we narrowed the scope of the analysis to two levels of analysis to describe the interdependence between crisis management and network governance on the Accepted Article This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

operational and policy level of the Antwerp Port Authority [2] . As Alter and Hage (1993) suggested we need to make a minimum distinction between the policy level and the administrative level because coordination of joint efforts tends to transcend organizational hierarchical levels as well as involve multiple different functional units like divisions or departments. The data allowed us to differentiate between these two levels having access to the crisis management team (operations or in Alter and Hage's terms administration) and the leadership team (policy).

In order to understand how APA attempted to manage the crisis throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we conduct a network analysis based on three sources of data. For our primary data source we draw upon the records and minutes of three types of meetings: the crisis management team meetings (CMT), the nautical partners meetings (NP), and the leadership team meetings (LT). The data covers a period of 12 weeks (20/01-12/04) including 53 meetings mentioning 73 unique actors involved in the port community. Data records are based on 26 Crisis Management Team meetings with a total estimated duration of 20hrs (66 logbook pages), 16 Leadership Team meetings with a total estimated duration of 10hrs (19 logbook pages) and 11 Nautical Partners meetings with a total estimated duration of 12hrs.

In addition, we consult data from Sciensano, which is the Belgian institute for health responsible for the epidemiological follow-up of the COVID-19 epidemic in collaboration with its partners and other healthcare actors. These data provide insight into the dynamics of the pandemic. The third source of data were our co-authors two, four and five that managed the pandemic in the port of Antwerp. The second author attended all the crisis management team meetings and participated in various leadership team meetings, while the fourth author was present in some of the Task Force meetings (not examined in this article). By collaborating with Accepted Article This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. these practitioners, we are able to go back and forth to the data during these periods allowing for interpretation of relationships between APA and actors in the port community as well as built rich narratives of issues discussed in these meetings.

In table 1, we have portrayed descriptive measures of the data on the meetings. For data analysis, meetings were grouped among four phases of the COVID-19 crisis for which each a network structure was created: (1) pre crisis network (20/01-01/03 -6 weeks), (2) pre lock down network (02/03-15/03 -2 weeks), (3) lock down network (16/03-29/03 -2 weeks), and (4) crisis network (30/03-12/04 -2 weeks).

--- Table 1 . Around here. ---

The reason why we opted for six rather than two weeks in the first period is to illustrate what we observed as a -slow start of the COVID-19 pandemic that increased exponentially‖ (Sciensano 2020). This aligns with the meta-data of the statistical reports of Sciensano, which started issuing data only from the 1 st of March, providing a daily report from March 14 th onwards [3] .

A total of four network plots (and one overview plot) are presented to provide descriptive evidence concerning overall network structures and the embeddedness of individual actors in the four phases. For each phase, we present a one-mode matrix based on the actors' list in which we weight ties between two actors based on frequency of mentioning in the records of the logbook and/or minutes of the meetings.

Three rounds of coding were executed in an iterative manner in which we went back and forth to the data and codes of various issues and actors involved in each crisis management and

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. leadership team meeting that was reported in the data. In appendix C we have provided an excerpt of data cleaning and the coding process. We aimed to minimize bias by having the first and second author agree on codes and accordingly discuss the application of codes with the third author to agree on the content of issues and the involvement of actors reported in the various meetings. Simultaneously with the coding process, an actor list of APA departments was developed, indexed and pseudonymized (differentiating between operations and policy, n=18) as well as actors of the Port community (n=55). The coding process was performed in Microsoft Excel. To calculate centralization and density scores reported in table 1 we used Ucinet 6 (Borgatti, Everett, and Freeman 2002) . To develop the network plots, we use the node-and centrality lay-out based on degree centrality analysis in the network visualization tool Visone 2.7.3 (http://visone.info/; Brandes and Wagner 2004) .

The remainder of the article is organized in three sections. In the first results section we present the findings on the structure and governance of the network of networks. We display in five figures an overall overview (figure 2), as well as more detailed views for each period (figures 3-6) to describe the development of the network structure and the embeddedness of individual actors of both the crisis management team and the leadership team of the Antwerp Port Authority (APA) during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the second results section, we elaborate on the findings of how this network of networks managed the crisis before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. We close with a discussion and conclusion section in which we present recommendations for future research and practice.

Due to space limitations, readers can find more detail on the broader research project online. In appendix A, we have provided a background on the Port of Antwerp, a description of the Antwerp Port Authority, and a more detailed account on the two levels of analysis and the

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In figure 2, we have mapped the network structures along the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the first six weeks, the network structure was composed of 28 actors dealing with 17 issues in total (see also tables 1 and 2). However, in the course of merely four weeks (March 1 -29), the number of actors doubled, the number of initial ties multiplied more than five times, and together with its partners APA had to deal with 195 issues in just two weeks at its peak. In the last phase the situation stabilized (March 30 -April 4).

In those periods each network structure shows various links between APA actors (purple and red nodes) and external actors (yellow nodes) from which APA derives its legitimacy (Human and Provan 2000) . The goal of APA was to avoid a legitimacy crisis in which they could potentially lose its formal authority of the Port of Antwerp (Human and Provan 2000) . As such, they aimed to prevent at all cost to close the port due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The APA followed what Human and Provan (2000) term a dual legitimacy-building strategy in which personnel were provided resources and support to arrange institutions and structures of authority and collaboration such as a crisis management team on the level of operations, and a task force and nautical partners meeting on the policy level. The leadership team compared to the crisis management team was more externally focused on building outside-in legitimacy, through solidifying relationships with important stakeholders from the port community.

The Antwerp Port Authority can be considered as successful in managing the pandemic in the sense that the port kept fully operational throughout the four phases on all terminals. In 

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When comparing the four network structures to each other, we find that after the first six weeks a core group of actors from APA assembled. Together these seven actors-purple and red nodes displayed in the center of the figures, formed what we coin a Lead network (cf. Provan and Kenis 2008) . In analogy to Provan and Kenis' Lead organization-a mode of governance involving a single organization acting as a highly centralized network broker to govern all major network-level activities and key decisions, a Lead network from a network of networks point of view, represents a single network composed of multiple functional units from various organizations and networks that differed in (lateral) position, categories of relevant resources, knowledge, or experience, and in proportion of socially valued tangible and intangible assets or resources within the organizational field of the port Antwerp (cf. Harrison and Klein 2007) .

The comparison of structures with the issues being dealt before and during the COVID-19 pandemic (Table 1 ), shows that in the pre-crisis network ( Figure 2 ) the departments and divisions of APA acted under business as usual. Before the pandemic started, the mode of governance of APA was best described as a brokered governance which both governs the sustainment of the port community and its activities as well as participates as a broker in major port activities and key decisions (see Appendix A). This corresponds with elements from a Lead Organization (level of operations) as well as a Network Administrative Organization (policy level) as governance modes (cf. Provan and Kenis 2008).

When we examine the development of APA evolving from a -pre-lock-down network‖, to a -lock-down network‖, to a -crisis network‖, we observe that the governance of the network developed into a Lead network that in its core was composed of APA actors (cf. Nowell and Steelman, Velez, and Yang 2018). Over the course of the pandemic, its structure evolved from a state of loosely coupled links that were targeted and appropriate (Figures 3-4) , towards a state of

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tightly coupled links that were stronger and more intense based on the frequency of interactions . Note that although, the -crisis network‖ structure in figure 6 is highly similar in number of actors and amount of ties compared with the -lock down network‖ in figure 5 , the number of issues to be resolved by APA in collaboration with others dropped significantly from 195 to 97 in two weeks' time.

Once the port of Antwerp entered the phase of lock-down and subsequently crisis, the functional units of APA took the lead, enacted by multiple brokerage roles allowing them pooling information and resources and working together with port community actors to guarantee the operability of the port as well as safeguard that the main sea gateway remained open for shipping. We found incidence for five types of brokerage (Gould and Roberto 1989 ; see appendix B) with the Lead APA network selectively integrating various overlapping subgroups both within, as well as in a later stage, between functional units of various organizations and networks.

The strategic orientation in brokering followed by the Lead network was to collaborate in order to achieve the field-level goal: keeping the port open (cf. Soda, Tortoriello, and Iorio 2018). During the pandemic this was exemplified by three distinct brokering behaviors: separating, mediating, and joining (stratification of) organizations and networks (Grosser, Obstfeld, Labianca, and Borgatti 2019; Gulati, Puranam, and Tushman 2012) .

The network analysis also showed that another network was created by the Lead APA network to safeguard, monitor, and control the sea gate to the port during -the lock-down‖ period ( Figure 5 ). In figure 5 , this network is difficult to isolate due to the density and multiplexity of the network structure (Table 1) , however, in figure 6 the network is more evident in the left top corner. The inception of the network can be derived from the nautical partners meeting initiated

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. by APA on March 12 th . The inception of this network as an institution and structure of authority and collaboration is interesting because of several reasons.

The network was highly selective in its member base, representing a limited number of actors responsible for the nautical operations in relation to the Flemish and Dutch ports of the Scheldt estuary, including the port authorities, tugboat companies, and pilots. In line with the shared-participant network governance mode (Provan and Kenis, 2008) , this network of a small group of actors aligned together around one common purpose: keeping the sea gate to the ports in the Scheldt river open at all costs, despite the fact that these actors are historically in competition with each other. The priority of keeping each port in the Scheldt estuary open during the pandemic likely explains why they were willing to redistribute operational resources among each other as long as this safeguarded the attainment of not closing down their port.

Although the network was originally incepted as a temporary information diffusion network, its function altered over the course from sharing information, to problem solving, to building (inter)national capacity to address future community needs which might arise.

The presidency of the meeting was handed over to the transnational nautical authority over the Scheldt Estuary as from April 1 st in order to be consistent with its formal authority towards external parties (i.c. shipping) and to further enhance consensus and power symmetry between the actors. By stepping down as chair, the Lead APA network safeguarded that competitors remained working together.

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In Table 2 , we provide an overview of what APA did in terms of crisis management differentiating between the level of operations and policy. When we look at what issues were addressed in the APA meetings, we discovered a shift in attention from COVID-19 as a public health issue, towards the effects of this pandemic on economy and society. Further the type of issues addressed in the various meetings over the four analyzed periods suggests that COVID-19 as a wicked problem was mostly perceived as a problem of -information provision‖, -decision-making‖, and to a lesser degree -sense-making‖ of the current situation APA was in (see Table 1 for a summary and Table 2 for details).

When we retrospectively examined how APA managed the crisis in the Port of Antwerp throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we found several interesting matters that highlighted the idiosyncrasies of this information problem. Both on the level of operations as well as policy, APA acquired, distributed, interpreted, and integrated information (Flores, Zheng, Rau, and Thomas 2012). This suggests that COVID-19 was mostly perceived as an information problem because both a lack and abundance of information lead to not fully understanding the nature of the problem, which made COVID-19 wicked.

Information was transferred through various means of communication. At some point, APA even organized webinars to ensure national and international partners of the operational readiness and continuation of the port. However, in most cases feedback and updates were exchanged within APA and with actors from the port community. APA made sure that information was present at those that needed to execute particular tasks or coordinated crisis management and communication (Puranam, Alexy, and Reitzig 2014).

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Another emerging topic was their operational method resulting into a clear collective focus on the tasks at hand. This helped APA to get some kind of grip on the crisis situation.

Related to this was how APA developed a collective focus within the port community. Internally, the crisis management team (operations) reported daily updates to the leadership team (policy) on various issues. They made sure that they collected the perception of parties that were not involved in the Task Force. The Task Force was assembled by APA to have policy level meetings with the representative bodies of the main industry and shipping stakeholders, public actors such as the Federal Police, the Fire Department, the Federal Public Service of Health and representatives of the Municipality, Province and Regional Government to ensure alignment over the whole logistic chain and the environment in which it acts.

Externally, APA detected early (warning) signals i.e., from the evolving situation in China due to their national and international network of ports. After verifying the signals received, APA could take informed measures to contain and manage the crisis.

--- Table 2 . Around here. ---Based on being informed quickly and accurately, APA was able to take the lead and act proactively. As a response to numerous inquiries on dealing with inland navigation barges within the Covid-19 context, a procedure was drafted by APA, shared for consent with the other ports in the Scheldt estuary and with the authorities responsible for inland navigation on March 21st and released on April 8th after final verification with the inland navigation representative bodies. The extensive, but delaying-consent seeking, led to a unified approach towards a highly scattered subgroup, such as the inland navigation industry, which fully embraced it.

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Another example was how they prepared and dealt with the lock down. Belgium went in lock down from 18 th of March, but at the 16 th APA was already defining what essential functions of the port needed to remain operational for traveling and transportation. APA's highperformance can be (at least) partially attributed to them being principal-driven, rather than rule- This likely explains why we found that from the 23rd of March the crisis was contained and consequently from 2 nd April APA decided to reduce the frequency of meetings. Interestingly, however, when we took into account what actual solutions APA had devised to solve the pandemic, we found they made a public poster, initiated a digital campaign, launched two websites, and arranged a call center to provide a hot line to help personnel.

Our findings inform further research on network of networks in Public administration in three ways.

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. Although this article only examined the notion of network of networks from an egocentric point of view (APA within the Port of Antwerp community), we gained a first glimpse of the scale and complexity that was involved with the COVID-19 pandemic. Future research could in particular build on and extend this exogenous network of networks perspective, focusing on a collection of multiple networks that in some way are interdependent within an organizational field to explain why and how they might come together to potentially create a larger, more complex system like a port or city. Based on the preliminary evidence presented here and building forth on the work of others, we propose two governance mechanisms that can be crucial in these explanations; First, is how a network of networks provides and motivates a collective focus by an organizational field on the problem being faced (cf. Kenis 

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Third, the findings shed some preliminary evidence for addressing anticipatory and mitigative actions among a network of high reliability organizations, i.e. fire and emergency services, police, and municipality (Weick and Sutcliffe 2007), and networks, i.e., the Lead APA network and the network of nautical partners (Berthod, Grothe-Hammer, Müller-Seitz, Raab, and Sydow 2016) . The concept of high reliability organizations (HRO) gives directions for anticipating and containing incidents within a single organization, and focuses on maintaining a high degree of operational safety that can be achieved by ‗a free flow of information at all times' (Rochlin, 1999 (Rochlin, , p.1554 This research helps us to understand the response to crisis in a very specific case and context. Nevertheless, several preliminary findings may be generalizable to other organizational fields such as (air)ports, cities, safety regions, health-and social care systems or innovation regions like the Brainport region. For instance, one important aspect we found was the consistency of communication and the selective integration of organizations and networks with adequate monitoring and control, avoiding to impose strong constrains that limit cooperation or minimize the independence of various subsystems to be crucial. However, in some contexts like safety regions this may be at odds with common practices in crisis management among public organizations that are dominated by a strong command and control approach (Groenendaal and Helsloot, 2016; Moynihan 2009 ).

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Moreover, as we are increasingly not only dealing with one specific organization, but with multiple organizational networks that are involved in ‖taming‖ a wicked problem, the findings suggests that network managers (brokers) and public policy planners (designers) need to think together of how a network of a collection of organizational networks can create, selectively integrate, and reproduce an effective complex, larger system that offers more adequate functionality and performance to match the scope and detailed nature of a problem that faces an organizational field. Future research needs to determine which configuration of structure and governance of network of networks consistently achieves what field-level outcomes given the context of an organizational field. When limited diversity is present among various organizational fields, we can then start with revisiting the preliminary theorems introduced by Keith Provan and colleagues.

This calls for further investigating various wicked problems as co-evolutionary patterns of interaction between networks and organizations as separate from, yet part of, an environment external to these networks and organizations themselves (Alter 1990 To stimulate fresh thinking in practice and spur on empirical research on network of networks, our viewpoint is that: The key to the solution in how to deal with a wicked problem is to structure a system in such a way that provides appropriate incentives for collective focus and Accepted Article This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

selective integration with adequate monitoring and control, but to avoid imposing strong constrains that might limit cooperation or minimize the operational and managerial independence of various subsystems that make up this larger, complex system.

In this article, we reported on how the Antwerp Port Authority (APA) dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic by examining the network structure and the embeddedness of individual actors of both the crisis management team and the leadership team. We drew upon the records and minutes of three types of meetings: the crisis management team meetings (CMT), the nautical partners meetings (NM), and the leadership team meetings (LT). The data covered a period of 12 weeks (20/01-12/04) including 53 meetings mentioning 73 unique actors involved.

The network analysis revealed how the structure of Lead APA network developed during various phases of the crisis. We found various indications on interdependence and emergence between APA as a lead network in a network of networks within the port community. In addition, the results show how the Lead APA network governed organizations and networks in the port community. Practitioners and scholars should be tentative in generalizing these preliminary findings presented here, because the data only allowed us to merely employ an egocentric network perspective based on the APA Lead network. By having provided descriptive evidence concerning the development of the structure, governance, and crisis management by the APA Lead network before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, we hope to engage practitioners and network scholars to rethink current design and governance of organizational networks within organizational fields that have been hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. It would be very promising for policy and practice to be able in the nearby future to identify what factors of a wicked

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problem that faces an organizational field determines what combination of structure and governance arrangement we need to employ when, and why.

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[1] With defining a focus, we mean a temporally unfolding and contextualized process of input regulation and interaction articulation in which a -wicked problem‖ is scanned, given meaning to, and structured by decomposing it into a set of tasks that can be divided and allocated (Faraj and Xiao 2006; Daft and Weick 1984; Puranam, Alexy, and Reitzig 2014) . Note that this process of defining or making sense is temporal and subjective in nature and a key challenge is organizing solutions towards problems of which are not fully in scope nor understand its detailed nature require that we make sense of how we understand problems (Weick 1995).

[2] In future research, we aim to broaden this scope by expanding the periods as well as the triangulate the egocentric perspective from the Port Authority with other perspectives from actors of the port community.

[3] Sciensano is the Belgian institute for health responsible for the epidemiological follow-up of the COVID-19 epidemic in collaboration with its partners and other healthcare actors. Data can be accessed here: https://www.sciensano.be/en

[4] Port of Houston, Incident report, March 19th 2020; retrieved from: https://porthouston.com/wpcontent/uploads/COVID19_2020_03_18_BCT_BPT_Incident_Report.pdf Tables   Table 1. Types of data and descriptive measures of four networks (full table is 

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. By comparing the semilattice structure (a) to a tree structure (b), it becomes clear that ‗a

one is wholly contained in the other or else they are wholly disjoint (Alexander 2015, p.6-7) .'

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Centrality layout based on node value (degree std., link strength frequency value). Ties with a frequency 1-3 are displayed in light grey. Ties with a frequency 4-6 are displayed in dark grey. Ties with a frequency 7-9 are displayed in black Ties with a frequency 10-12 are displayed in black with a larger size. Ties with a frequency 13+ are displayed in black with a larger size. Red nodes refer to leadership of APA.

Purple nodes refer to operations of APA. Yellow nodes refer to partners of POA. 

Centrality layout based on node value (degree std., link strength uniform). 28 actors with 89 ties in total are displayed. Ties with a frequency 1-3 are displayed.

Red nodes refer to leadership of APA.

Purple nodes refer to operations of APA. Yellow nodes refer to partners of POA.

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Centrality layout based on node value (degree std., link strength uniform). 32 actors with 146 ties in total are displayed. Ties with a frequency 1-3 are displayed in light grey. Ties with a frequency 4-6 are displayed in dark grey. Red nodes refer to leadership of PALN.

Purple nodes refer to operations of PALN. Yellow nodes refer to partners of POA.

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Legend: Centrality layout based on node value (degree std., link strength uniform). 57 actors with 482 ties in total are displayed. Ties with a frequency 1-3 are displayed in light grey. Ties with a frequency 4-6 are displayed in dark grey. Ties with a frequency 7-9 are displayed in black Ties with a frequency 10-12 are displayed in black with a larger size. Ties with a frequency 13+ are displayed in black with a larger size.

Red nodes refer to leadership of APA.

Purple nodes refer to operations of APA. Yellow nodes refer to partners of POA.

Accepted Article Figure 5 . Crisis network

Centrality layout based on node value (degree std., link strength uniform). 53 actors with 416 ties in total are displayed. Ties with a frequency 1-3 are displayed in light grey. Ties with a frequency 4-6 are displayed in dark grey. Ties with a frequency 7-9 are displayed in black Red nodes refer to leadership of APA.

Purple nodes refer to operations of APA. Yellow nodes refer to partners of POA.

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Since 2018, the Antwerp Fire Service (Brandweer Zone Antwerpen or BZA) and Antwerp Management School (AMS) have been joining forces in an applied research project to develop a future vision on the organization of emergency services in Antwerp (hence the involvement of the fourth and fifth author, being the Fire Chief and company commander). In this project, we examine how to organize larger, complex systems for collective, field-level behavior; How organizations and networks in an organizational field can be selectively integrated-so that those networks that need to work together do so, while others that not need to work together, do not;

And what institutions and structures of authority and collaboration we need that provide network managers (system designers) the means to create, collectively define, integrate, and dissolve a network solution to organizational field challenges such as public safety and health. 

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With 235mio tons of maritime freight volume (in 2019), the Port of Antwerp is the second largest port in Europe. Stretching over a surface of 120 km² and centrally positioned some 80km inland it has 60% of Europe's production and purchasing power within a 500km

radius. Under the authority of the Federal and Flemish government, the port area stretches over two provinces with the Scheldt River in between. Apart from the Port of Antwerp, the Scheldt Estuary houses another three seaports, of different size and government structure, and their ancillary services. Nearly 62,000 persons work in the port community, which also contains the second largest petrochemical cluster in the World. This positions the Port of Antwerp as one of the main gateways to Europe. Not only is the port critical to the logistics required to support governments in their attempts to reduce the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is also a vital infrastructure that allows for continued economic activity in Europe in general and Belgium in particular.

The Antwerp Port Authority (APA) is a public limited company under public law, fully owned by the Municipality of Antwerp. APA plays a key role in the port's day-to-day operations. 

On the level of operations, we found three actors that played a central role in the network of networks. These actors were the department Harbor, Safety and Security (OP/HSS), the Vessel Traffic department (OP/VT), and the Safety and Health department (AD/SH). These three departments acted as the executives of the port by controlling and monitoring the port community. Based on participant observations by the second author, we also had access to data on the Operations Director (OP) who has been heavily involved in managing these departments

On the policy level-four actors were found to be involved with the port governance and 

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The Director of Operations (OP) oversees the nautical operations department, which is responsible for the fleet and the above mentioned shipping traffic management and Harbor Safety and Security. Asset management and port projects respectively deal with the development and management of the dry and maritime structure and with technical projects that have an impact on port infrastructure. sustainable and balanced market for goods and services. This agency was more centrally involved with APA as it is in charge of the quality control and distribution of medical equipment and personal protective equipment (PPE).

The second category involves the port stakeholders. In general, we identified five types of stakeholders in the port: industry, shipping, services, road-, and rail transportation. Based on table 1 and figure 1, we found that the Industry stakeholders and the Shipping stakeholders were more mentioned in the COVID-19 crisis meetings. Note that next to those two stakeholders, there are also the Inland Navigation owners, operators and representatives, who are more scattered and are often smaller businesses. In Belgium, this represents merely 1150 vessels with a total capacity of 1,8mio ton and around 1800 persons, a majority self-employed. APA alone already handles about 99,3 mio ton goods for over 52000 inland navigation vessels annually, which emphasizes the international context of this stakeholder segment (2019). The Industry

Stakeholders comprise all companies that are based in the port (900 companies in approximation). These include terminal operators (containers, liquid, dry bulk, etc.) and chemical production companies, often subsidiaries of multinational companies within the port area. They have a commercial relationship with APA, being concessionaires and APA being the landlord.

The Shipping Stakeholders on the other hand, are those that own, manage, operate or represent the shipping lines. This includes shipping companies but also agencies and representative bodies.

Their commercial relationship with APA takes the form of port dues.

The final category represents the nautical service providers that act as the pilots for the different sections of the river Scheldt, the dock pilots, helmsmen, boatmen and other supportive

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PAR COVID-19 VIEWPOINT SYMPOSIUM 58 58 services that ensure safe navigation from sea to port and vice versa. These service providers closely collaborate with the operations department of APA.

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We provide for each brokerage type (structural position) of Gould and Roberto (1989) a short qualitative account to illustrate the veracity of this dynamic process of brokerage conducted by the APA Lead network. The strategic orientation in brokering followed by the Lead network was to collaborate in order to achieve the field-level goal: keeping the port open (cf. Soda et al., 2018) . During the pandemic this was exemplified by three distinct brokering behaviors:

separating, mediating, and joining organizations and networks (cf. Grosser et al., 2019) . (2) Itinerant broker between subgroups within the port community: mediation. In this role functional units of the Lead APA network acted as a mediator between two subgroups of the community. In one example they mediated a concern regarding a parking lot dedicated to trucks. Whereas the parking was closed in agreement with the port police force on March 20th, it was reopened with additional enforcement measures on March 26 th after extensive dialogue between representative bodies of the road transportation industry and the police force. This could not have been the case without mediation of the Lead APA network between conflicting subgroups of the port community.

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(3) Gatekeeper of the port community: mediating. In this brokerage role the Lead APA network in close collaboration with the Federal Agency Saniport (responsible for sanitary control of international traffic) which ships were allowed to enter. They acted as a go-between controlling access from the sea to the land. APA preventively assigned a lay-by berth as quarantine area for suspected ships and the APA Harbour Master office played a key role in authorizing suspected vessels to berth and under what conditions, informing the right parties and providing conditions to leave port after being cleared following an infection. In its gatekeeper role on several occasions the Lead APA network needed to switch to mediation when disputes between the different actors (ships, service providers, shore industry, etc.) over preventive measures need to be promoted for reconciliation-always with the aim of safeguarding port operations whilst protecting the health of those involved.

(4) Representative of the port community: mediating. Although during the COVID-19 pandemic formally no additional authority was assigned to APA, its primary legitimacy base derived from its central position as a core provider of services to the industry and safeguarding the shipping interests reaching far beyond the local and regional economy of Antwerp. This also means that APA as a broker represents the port community for instance illustrated by a press release on the Task Force on April 2nd: -At the moment Port of Antwerp is not experiencing any fall in the volume of freight. In fact there is a noticeable increase in the volume of pharmaceuticals and e-commerce. The supply of foodstuffs is also going smoothly. On the other hand there has been a fall in imports and exports of cars and other industrial components due to various industries closing down.‖ 2008 ). By limiting the number of network participants the Lead APA network was able to create a narrow orientation for the network purpose: safeguard access to the seaport for

shipping. In addition, to increase effectiveness the Lead APA network mediated by handing over the presidency of the meeting to the transnational nautical authority over the Scheldt Estuary as from April 1 st in order to be consistent with its formal authority towards external parties (i.c. shipping) and to further enhance consensus and power symmetry between the actors.

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