The Role of Media Exposure on Coordination in the Humanitarian Setting

Abstract

D espite high demand and resource limitations, humanitarian organizations (HOs) typically do not share resources and/or coordinate in the field. While coordination enhances operational performance and saves costs, the general perception is that it dilutes the media attention that individual organizations might receive, and negatively influences their future donation income. In this study, we empirically unveil the impact of media exposure and operational performance on the donations obtained by HOs. Then, based on the empirical results, we develop a stylized model to characterize the structure of preferred coordination policies with respect to an organization's funding source and main mandate. Our findings shed light on the incentives and dynamics that drive behaviors in humanitarian operations and provide insights for policy makers on designing and implementing mechanisms that encourage humanitarian coordination.

Cross-sector humanitarian–business partnerships in managing humanitarian logistics: an empirical verification

“…Nurmala, de Leeuw, and Dullaert (2017) argue based on literature and interviews that humanitarian organisations are often worried about the negative perceptions of society and donors regarding establishing partnerships with the business sector. In line with this, Rueede and Kreutzer (2014) and Eftekhar et al (2017) argue that humanitarian organisations may want to be seen as independent or may worry about the negative connotations of being connected to business partners.…”

“…According to Van Wassenhove (2006, 476), '…Collectively they account for only 3% of disaster relief operations'. This focus on natural disasters may be caused by the fact that natural disasters generate most interest (Eftekhar et al 2017;Kunz and Reiner 2012). Business corporations may also want to avoid being involved in (and therefore connected to) operations related to manmade disasters due to potentially negative connotations related to the disaster.…”

“…This could because the response phase of natural disaster relief operations attracts more attention and media exposure than the preparedness phase and the reconstruction phase (Eftekhar et al 2017;Rueede and Kreutzer 2014;Stewart, Kolluru, and Smith 2009). The fact that most of the partnerships focus their efforts mainly on disaster response shows that humanitarian-business partnerships have not been optimised to solve one of the biggest issues in humanitarian logistics: lack of performance during emergency response due to poor preparedness.…”

“…First and foremost, it is pivotal to understand why companies are mainly interested in providing financial donations rather than for example services, as well as how the commercial sector may also contribute product or service related support. Eftekhar et al (2017) for example discuss how media exposure contributes to third party donations. In line with this, further experimental research may support similar investigations on factors that affect donation preferences.…”

Surface vs. Air Shipment of Humanitarian Goods under Demand Uncertainty

“…Eftekhar et al (2014) also focus on the macro-level problem for an international HO while limiting the scope to vehicle procurement. Eftekhar et al (2016) expand the same emphasis by examining the role of media exposure. Besiou et al (2014) examine the impact of earmarked funding in the purchasing decision of vehicles in designing the distribution operations both from the perspectives of minimizing total cost and maximizing service levels for an international HO.…”