Orchestrating Coordination among Humanitarian Organizations

Abstract

Disasters mobilize hundreds of organizations, but coordination among them remains a challenge. This is why the United Nations has formed clusters to facilitate information and resource exchange among humanitarian organizations. Yet, coordination failures in prior disasters raise questions as to the effectiveness of the cluster approach in coordinating relief efforts. To better understand barriers to coordination, we developed a grounded theory and augmented the theory with an agent-based simulation. Our theory discerns a cluster lead's roles of facilitating coordination, but also investing in its own ground operations. We find that specifically serving such a dual role impairs swift trust and consequent coordination among cluster members. The additional simulation findings generalize the detrimental effect of the cluster lead's dual role versus a pure facilitator role and specify it against various boundary conditions.

Improving information alignment and coordination in humanitarian supply chain through blockchain technology

“…To facilitate effective coordination the United Nations has developed clusters to facilitate information sharing and resources among the participating humanitarian organizations. Our study results provide clarity to the humanitarian organizations that with the help of blockchain technology how humanitarian organizations can improve information alignment and coordination which has been one of the major concerns in recent times (see Ruesch et al 2022).…”

“…The disasters mobilize several organizations, but the coordination among these organizations remains a puzzle that needs to be solved (e.g., Balcik et al 2010;Akhtar et al 2012;Moshtari, 2016;Dubey et al 2019a;Fosso Wamba, 2020;Dubey et al 2021b;Ruesch et al 2022). Coordination in the highly networked world presents significant opportunities as well as throw some challenges to deal with.…”

“…However, despite enormous potential, the study on the technologically driven coordination among relief workers engaged in relief supply chain activities is scant (Ergun et al 2014;Gupta et al 2016;Dubey et al 2019aDubey et al , 2021b. In a highly chaotic environment, coordination among the humanitarian relief actors holds a significant promise in alleviating humanitarian crises (Ruesch et al 2022). The alignment between the IT capabilities of the organization and the business strategy provides a cutting edge in highly dynamic, uncertain, and complex environments (Chan and Reich, 2007;Akter and Wamba, 2019;Dubey et al 2021b).…”

Logistics for a better world

“…Recent research in the humanitarian logistics literature has highlighted several core L&SCM phenomena, such as outsourcing (Gossler et al, 2020), exchange relationships (Shaheen & Azadegan, 2020), and coordination mechanisms (Ruesch et al, 2022). At the microlevel, the literature addresses essential questions about decision‐making (Comes et al, 2020) and risk‐taking (Shaheen et al, 2021).…”