Inter-Organizational Partnering Strategies in Disaster Response: A Complex Network Perspective

Establishing appropriate inter-organizational partnership in disaster response is of great help to the improvement of disaster relief performance. However, the selection of proper disaster response organizations for government agencies to build partnerships among the numerous relief organizations remains to be addressed. To fill the gap, this paper adopted a complex network modeling method to explain the formation mechanism of inter-organizational partnership in disaster response. Then, based on a numerical simulation method, the paper compared different inter-organizational partnering strategies, and explored the optimal inter-organizational partnering strategy in the disaster response process. Results demonstrate that the optimal partnering strategy is contingent on disaster response conditions, with accurate disaster information and abundant relief materials to choose the material difference principle, and vague disaster information to choose the organizational influence principle. At the same time, frequent information communication and material cooperation allocation can be transformed into low-frequency information communication and government-led material allocation. This study provides practical guidance for disaster relief organizations to choose inter-organizational partnering strategies, and enriches the disaster organization management theory.