Trust in humanitarian operations: a content analytic approach for an Indian NGO

Abstract

Trust between partners, a key element enabling coordination across supply chains, has recently started gaining attention in humanitarian operations literature. Yet, empirical examination of this concept is scant. Borrowing from extant literature on trust within organisational behaviour stream, this paper aims to empirically verify trust formation types: companion, competence and commitment, in a disaster relief supply chain using primary and secondary data from an Indian Humanitarian relief organisation (HRO). Further, we identify variations in trust formation during disaster relief activities and developmental programmes, and between upstream and downstream partners of a humanitarian relief organisation. Based on the results of our content analysis, we contend that while companion based trust is significantly more prevalent during developmental programmes, competence based trust is important during both disaster periods and otherwise. We also find that there are significant differences in the trust formation between upstream and downstream partners and the HRO. This study has significant theoretical and practical implications on identifying the role of trust in humanitarian operations.

Keywords:

• disruption management
• emergency logistics
• trust
• humanitarian operations
• disaster relief supply chain
• content analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 While many parties are involved in a supply chain, trust is usually discussed with respect to two parties at a time.

2 Type of humanitarian operations (Pedraza-Martinez and Van Wassenhove 2016).

3 We use trust formation for development programs and trust formation during non-disaster times interchangeably throughout the text.

4 https://goonj.org/. The founder of GOONJ, Anshu Gupta is one of the leading social entrepreneurs in India who is also conferred upon with the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2015.

5 While donors are in the upstream, volunteers appear in the downstream of the DRSC. The respondents took the roles of both donors and volunteers based on the situation and our coding was done accordingly.

6 We did not consider dispositional trust in this study as it is not based on a relationship between trustor and trustee but rather based on the disposition to trust which might be dependent on various factors such as culture, upbringing etc.