Developing and Maintaining Trust in Hastily Formed Relief Networks

Abstract

Although there is a vast body of academic and practitioner literature championing the importance of trust in long-term business relationships, relatively little has been written discussing the development and maintenance of trust in networks that are formed at short notice and that often operate for a limited period of time. However, some models of trust and trusting behavior in such “hastily formed relief networks” (HFRN) do exist, and the aim of this chapter is to consider the theoretical application of one of the most prominent examples – that known as “swift trust” – to a post-disaster humanitarian logistics scenario. Presented from the perspective of a HFRN, this chapter presents a discussion of the practical application of the swift trust model.

Blockchain Technology for Emergency Response

“…The effects of catastrophic events often impair and destroy critical infrastructures, such as energy and communications [5,7]. In the context of emergency response, hastily formed relief networks have a shared information and communication space in which the different communities implement, plan, and commit themselves to specific operations [47].…”

“…Therefore, a crucial precondition for an interpersonal and interorganizational information exchange and cooperation is trust. Thus, the information providers in an interorganizational network will not exchange their messages without guarantee of classical information security features [25,29,47].…”

Internal integration in humanitarian supply chain management

“…The ensuing decade of HL research has largely followed suit with an overwhelming focus on external integration. Papers have considered civil-military cooperation (Rietjens, 2008; Heaslip et al , 2012; Whiting, 2012; Heaslip and Barber, 2014; Tatham and Rietjens, 2016), the UN cluster mechanisms (De Leeuw et al , 2010; Jahre and Jensen, 2010), and trust (Tatham and Kovács, 2010, 2014), as well as general collaboration and coordination amongst humanitarian actors (Stephenson, 2005; Schulz, 2009; Balcik et al , 2010; Dolinskaya et al , 2011; Mclachlin, Larson, 2011).…”