The effect of organisational structures within the humanitarian supply chain

Abstract

Setting up a humanitarian supply chain comes with diverse difficulties such as major uncertainties, dispersion of information and collaboration between different organisations. Since the environment around a disaster is uncertain and is changing quickly this could affect the performance of the relief provided. Difficulties within the collaborative relationship are likely to arise for example due to culture or language differences, but also factors such as how to communicate and exchanging information are considered to be influential on collaboration. In other words, all these organisation have their own (unique) organisational structure that encompasses the way how the organisation provides relief. This research illustrates that the presence of different organisational structures do have an effect on the relief effectiveness in areas with a high risk of natural disasters. This effect can be positive due to the diversity of different organisational structures. This diversity also includes a diversity in strengths that makes it possible for this chain of organisations to cope with changing and complex environments. However, problems within communication and information exchange between the organisations can lead to mistrust which effects the collaboration and therefore a negative performance of providing relief could occurred. Based on the analysis the use of platform technology is recommended to improve the information exchange and therefore the collaboration between the different organisations.