Nonprofit and public sector interorganizational collaboration in disaster recovery: Lessons from the field

Abstract

Recent disasters have identified that interorganizational collaboration is often fraught with complexity. This article explores interorganizational collaboration in the nonprofit and public sectors during the disaster recovery efforts after a catastrophic flooding event. Based on a series of in‐depth interviews with practitioners involved in the recovery following a flooding event, the findings offer insights into the barriers and mechanisms used to facilitate collaboration. In disaster recovery, collaboration is reliant on established interorganizational structures and trusting relationships. Role clarity is the link between these two characteristics, and this article posits the association between this and the concept of swift trust to facilitate collaboration. Theoretically, this article extends an existing multidimensional model of collaboration into the context of emergency management. Importantly, it also offers a tangible output for industry in the form of an aide‐mémoire for collaborating in disaster recovery.

Adaptive learning in cross-sector collaboration during global emergency: conceptual insights in the context of COVID-19 pandemic

“…Therefore, cross-sector collaborations are increasingly referred to as an effective tool to address many social problems, especially in emerging and developing countries, where institutions are weak and lack capacity in many cases (Curnin and O'Hara, 2019, Lu and Li, 2020, Vopni, 2020. When such countries face emergencies like COVID-19, the importance of cross-sector collaboration becomes even more paramount; the public sector (state) lacks the capacity to deal with and control the spread of the virus.…”

Interorganizational network portfolios of nonprofit organizations: Implications for collaboration management

“…Interorganizational networks describe systems of “high interdependence among otherwise autonomous agencies” (Lawless & Moore, 1989, p. 1167). Scholars have long recognized the importance of interorganizational networks among nonprofit, business, and governmental organizations in service delivery and addressing complex social challenges in areas such as education (Selden et al, 2006) and disaster relief and recovery (Curnin & O'Hara, 2019). NPOs collaborate with others to exchange information, share resources, and conduct joint programs to address social problems that single organizations could not tackle alone.…”

“…Although prior works have generated important insights to advance our understanding of how NPOs structure dyadic partnerships or collaboration networks to achieve collective goals for social impact, they lack insight into how organizations configure their egocentric networks at the meso‐organizational level. This question becomes increasingly pressing as many studies have shown the challenges and obstacles to collaboration, including management complexity, culture clash and competing institutional logics, coordination fatigue, loss of autonomy, lack of trust, and power imbalance (Curnin & O'Hara, 2019; Popp, Milward, MacKean, Casebeer, & Lindstrom, 2014), as well as individual nonprofits' struggles (e.g., lack of resources and capacity) within networks (AbouAssi, Makhlouf, & Whalen, 2016; Kim & Peng, 2018). Such challenges may keep NPOs from realizing their collaborative aspirations or prevent NPOs from collaborating at all.…”

“…Despite the potential influence of social mission on collaboration, little research exists to demonstrate whether having a certain mission is more likely to lead to cross‐sector collaboration. Although nonprofit networks are commonly studied, most research pertains to case studies of individual collaborations or samples of NPOs contained within one area of focus; examples of the latter include studies focused on issues of early childhood education (Selden et al, 2006), environment (AbouAssi et al, 2016), and disaster relief (Curnin & O'Hara, 2019).…”

Framing contests in global NGO networks: How controversies enable and challenge collaboration and action

“…A second related issue that needs to be assessed by an NGO concerns the role it wants and is able to play in the collaboration. Taking an intermediary role or advocating for insider/outsider coordination requires that an NGO is in the right position to play such role, mainly in relation to its independence from all the other parties involved in the issue and the existence of trusting relationships among actors (Curnin & O'Hara, ; Simo & Bies, ). In this respect, Oxfam's internal assessment of the situation seems to have neglected this, as it conceived its strategy solely on the idea that it could increase its position of power within SHAD using the pressure of the more pronounced and critical NGOs as a form of backing.…”