Member commitment and participation in local emergency planning committees

Research on Local Emergency Planning Committees (LEPCs) has suggested that members' perceptions of group processes and participation activities mediat e the relationship between organizational context and LEPC effectiveness. D ata from 57 LEPCs support the importance of organizational commitment in pr edicting member participation and the predictive power of some of organizat ional commitment's previously identified antecedents. However, the data fai led to support two hypotheses about the effects of organizational context o n group process and of member participation on LEPC effectiveness. These fi ndings suggest ways to increase the effectiveness of voluntary, quasi-publi c organizations such as LEPCs, citizen advisory panels, and planning boards .