Information Technology, Mutual Trust, Flexibility, Agility, Adaptability: Understanding Their Linkages and Impact on Humanitarian Supply Chain Management Performance

Abstract

The increase in the occurrence of natural disasters worldwide is of growing concern for the social and economic development of the countries involved. Disasters are unavoidable but actions can be taken to mitigate the impact of disaster on the country concerned. The efficiency of disaster relief operations cannot be enhanced as a whole; the organizations involved in the process of disaster management process should adjust, modify and reconfigure their supply chains in order to improve the performance of the humanitarian supply chain (HSC). Empirical research into the context of HSC which explores the relationship between critical factors to humanitarian supply chain management performance is often limited. Hence, this study aims to investigate the relationships among information technology (IT) utilization, mutual trust, agility, flexibility, adaptability, and performance in the context of the humanitarian supply chain. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire from the respondents involved in the relief operations of the disaster that occurred in Uttarakhand (a Northern state in India) on June 13, 2013 to test the aforementioned relationship. This study indicates that the agility and flexibility of the organizations involved in a HSC are associated with the utilization of IT, which in turn is associated with the performance.

Defining and measuring the network flexibility of humanitarian supply chains: insights from the 2015 Nepal earthquake

“…For instance, it validates the positive influence of product mix (Vaillancourt 2016) and using IT (Kabra and Ramesh 2016) on HSCs' flexibility. Similarly, delivery and decision support systems, which ranked first and fifth in our fuzzy AHP analysis respectively, had been previously referred to as important factors for flexibility (Charles et al 2010).…”

The Role of Transparency in Humanitarian Logistics

“…Along with other factors, ensuring efficient response during DRO requires efficient systems of information sharing [14]. Poor performance may arise because organizations have less ability for constant change and transparency [37]. Transparency can solve problems of inefficiency, corruption and bad performance [38].…”

“…On the other, Thomas [64] reported that mutual trust is an element of public trust. Kabra & Ramesh [37] revealed that public and mutual trust is significant for achieving accurate and timely information and develops the information quality in terms of disclosure, accuracy and time lines between the public and organizations.…”

Meta‐Governance and Collaborative Crisis Management—Competing Rationalities in the Management of the Swedish Security Communications System

“…The management of crisis communication through technical and functional systems could thus be seen as a specific and vital meta‐governance task since functional and spontaneous communication is a central key when actors need to collaborate to address both natural and man‐made disasters (Manoj & Baker, ). Kabra and Ramesh () have showed that the agility and flexibility of organizations involved in rescue operations are associated with the utilization of apt information technology (IT), which can improve the performance and responses, even in loosely connected networks. The management of security communication is a difficult challenge and previous research shows that communication failures can lead to catastrophic consequences (Faulhaber, ; Kapucu, ; Peha, ).…”