Mitigating interorganizational conflicts in humanitarian logistics collaboration: the roles of contractual agreements, trust and post-disaster environmental uncertainty phases

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLM-06-2021-0318
• Published date: 10 December 2021
• Date: 10 December 2021
• Pages: 28-52
• Subject Matter: Management science & operations,Logistics
• Author: Chandra Prakash,Vivek Roy,Parikshit Charan

Mitigating interorganizational

conflicts in humanitarian logistics

collaboration: the roles of

contractual agreements, trust and

post-disaster environmental

uncertainty phases

Chandra Prakash

Operations and Analytics, Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai, India

Vivek Roy

Operations Management and Decision Sciences,

Indian Institute of Management Kashipur, Kashipur, India, and

Parikshit Charan

Operations and Quantitative Methods, Indian Institute of Management Raipur,

Raipur, India

Abstract

Purpose –Governance is the key to establishing effective collaboration among humanitarian logistics

partners addressing an ongoing relief work. With a focus on humanitarian interorganizational collaboration,

this research draws on governance theories to investigate how conflicts can be mitigated in this challenging

setting.

Design/methodology/approach –The focuson governance extends attention to the frontiers of contractual

agreement, trust and environmental uncertainty to be applied in the humanitarian setting. To develop

perspectives, an online survey of 289 field executives working in humanitarian organizations across the globe

is conducted. The findings are based on hierarchical regressions.

Findings –Environmentaluncertainty, in humanitarianlogistics, is not straightforward, but wieldsdistinctive

challenges in the response phase (immediateto the disaster) as well as the recovery phase (beginningof build

back) –toloom prospects of conflict betweenpartners. Findings outlinethat contractual agreementcan increase

conflict duringthe response phase (high environmental uncertainty),but mitigate it during the recoveryphase

(low environmental uncertainty). Furthermore, contractual agreement interactively strengthens the ability of

trust to reduceconflict. Yet, trust acting aloneshows best outcome to mitigateconflict.

Research limitations/implications –Contrary to the established understanding in traditional logistics

suggesting the vitality of contracts to easily mitigate challenges posed by environmental uncertainty, the

humanitarian setting extends a unique outset for interorganizational governance based on the temporality of

response and recovery phases.

Originality/value –This research pioneers to quantitatively examine the setting of humanitarian logistics

based on survey. Given the difficulty of data acquisition, the extant research has largely relied on qualitative

investigations when considering the agenda of governance.

Keywords Humanitarian logistics, Disaster, Interorganizational collaboration, Contractual agreement, Trust,

Conflict, Governance

Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction

Interorganizational collaboration plays a significant role in humanitarian logistics to integrate

organizations orchestrating the relief work (Kov

acs and Sigala, 2021). Collaboration between

partners is vital to shape the overall disaster response comprising logistical activities such

IJLM

33,1

28

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/0957-4093.htm

Received 5 June 2021

Revised 23 October 2021

Accepted 22 November 2021

The International Journal of

Logistics Management

Vol. 33 No. 1, 2022

pp. 28-52

© Emerald Publishing Limited

0957-4093

DOI 10.1108/IJLM-06-2021-0318

as facilitating the mobility of relief goods, information sharing on relief work targets and

knowledge sharing (Kov

acs and Spens, 2011;Van Wassenhove, 2006). Via collaboration,

humanitarian logistics targets to achieve seamless coordination, eliminate resource redundancy,

improve resilience and minimize relief material convergence (Besiou and Van Wassenhove, 2020;

Dubey et al., 2018;Roy, 2021;Siawsh et al.,2021;Wagner and Thakur-Weigold, 2018).

However,attaining such objectives withinhumanitarian logistics is surrounded with added

complexities. As such, the impact of disaster can have varied influence over a temporal scale. For

instance, focus of humanitarian organizations (HOs) within the immediate response to the

disaster can be entirely different from what they seek in the build back stages toward ultimate

recovery (Balcik et al.,2010). Thus, the earlystage of humanitarian responsecan be termedas the

“response phase”to largely revolve around dynamic issues for example urgent rescu e services,

need assessment of victims, deployment of relief fleet, installation of storage points/distribution

centers, resource allocation, and development of shelters. The “recovery phase,”on the other

hand, can revolve around more stable objectives such as cleaning of debris, resuming

institutional services (health, education, government offices), rehabilitation of victims, rebuilding

of infrastructure (telecommunication, buildings) (Altay and Green, 2006;Goldschmidt and

Kumar, 2016;Siawsh et al., 2021). Therefore, humanitarian relief work can be inferred to be

surrounded with uncertainties of varying depths and efforts over a temporal scale.

Given such challenges, ensuring the efficiency and effectiveness of humanitarian

logistics is pressingly dependent on good governance (Balcik et al., 2010;Day et al., 2012;

Dennehy et al., 2021). The practitioner circuit further concurs with this concern for example

the “United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction”clearly outlines that governance in

disaster relief is important to aid collective decisions based on traditions and processes

(Mami, 2019). The academic frame of logistics and supply chain management defines

governance as the interrelated set of norms, practices, rules and regulations designed to

mitigate conflict in an interorganizational collaboration (Blome et al., 2013;Cao and

Lumineau, 2015;Habib et al., 2015;Huo et al., 2015). Yet, the contextual literature on

humanitarian logistics establishes that successful collaboration in the humanitarian setting

is hard to achieve mainly due to conflicts that may emerge from (1) uncertainty, (2)

involvement of organizations with different values and mandate in collaboration, (3) lack of

technological capabilities and competencies among actors to hamper real-time information

sharing (Kunz et al.,2017;Schiffling et al., 2020). Therefore, presence of conflicts in

humanitarian logistics collaboration can increase risks that can be detrimental to the

outcomes of collaboration (Heaslip and Kov

acs, 2019;Kov

acs and Sigala, 2021;Larson and

Foropon, 2018;McLachlin and Larson, 2011).

Governance theorists have suggested two basic types of governance approaches for

mitigating transactional risks namely contractual and relational. Contracts are commonly

defined as written clauses and agreements that manage collaborative relationships through

legal stipulation. On the other hand, relational methods are defined as values embedded in

social interactions that govern collaborative relationships through trust (Dyer and Singh,

1998;Poppo and Zenger, 2002;Roy et al., 2018;Williamson, 1979). In this backdrop, the

understanding of humanitarian logistics is largely lacking in explaining how these

approaches can synergize a humanitarian logistics collaboration (cf. Moshtari, 2016). This

fact gets substantiated in several case reports following the “Principles of Partnership”

recommendations by the “Global Humanitarian Platform”(GHP), that have expressed

concerns that collaborative partners often ignores each other’s concerns to weave conflicts

(Brown, 2011;Campbell and Hartnett, 2005;Wahlstr€

om, 2015). Resultantly, the key question

that remains unanswered in humanitarian logistics collaboration is about how to reduce or

mitigate conflicts in interorganizational collaboration?

Withinthe academic frame on collaborationand conflictsin humanitarian logistics,scholars

have raised anecdotal concerns about contractual agreements leading to a bureaucratic and

Mitigating

interorgani-

zational

conflicts

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