Inter-Organizational Knowledge Transfer for Supply Chains in Crisis

Supply Chains are often required to absorb unexpected pressure, turbulent changes in demand and disruptions across their components. In this paper, we acknowledge both the inter-organizational and collaborative nature of supply chains as well as their knowledge-driven processes and aim at exploring how established logistics structures respond to conditions of crisis. We focus on identifying the knowledge management and sharing 'realities', the responsiveness of partnerships and to enrich our existing framework for a knowledge management of crises. Our research indicates that the role of networks and established inter-organizational practices is critical and therefore three specific actions should be initiated, a) communication needs to be formalized and information exchange should be supported by well-established and tested practices, b) inter-organizational relationships need to use pre-existing knowledge sharing and adaptation processes and c) an effective networked disaster supply chain system must be put in place, initiating and maintaining strong ties across the different parts of the operations. Future research includes the development of a normative framework that would address the processes of inter-organizational integration for more effective Disaster Supply Chain Management.