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Making humanitarian relief networks more effective: operational
coordination, trust and sense making |
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Max Stephenson
Introduction
The issue of how to
achieve improved operational coordination among those parties
and
organisations seeking to provide international humanitarian
emergency relief has
received persistent
attention from analysts in recent years (see, for example,
Minear,
2002; Macrae, 2002;
Rey, 1999). This matter is given continuing consideration in the
humanitarian
assistance literature because parties tend to agree with the
contention that
more successful
coordination of their efforts will lead to improved outcomes for
those
they seek to serve.
The trouble is that the operating environment in which
humanitarian
agents must work and
the typical structure of their operational relationships do
not necessarily
encourage broad and open cooperation among them.
This is so for a
number of reasons. First, since most organisations operating in
the
international
humanitarian assistance arena rely on donations for a share of
their
operating revenue,
there is much competition among them for scarce resources.
Another
commonly cited motive
to explain why humanitarian organisations do not always
readily share
operational information with other institutions working to
assist comparable
or similar clients, a
key factor in securing improved coordination, is the attempt
to be the first
entity to offer help in a ‘hot spot’. Often, ‘being first’
allows a humanitarian
agency to attract
media attention. That prominence, in turn, can draw in new
Disasters,
2005,
29(4): 337-350. © Overseas Development Institute, 2005
Published by Blackwell
Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and 350
Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
Max Stephenson, Jr.
338 donors and possibly increased revenues. Third, a disparate
organisational cast of characters
provides
humanitarian relief, including major actors representing the
United Nations
(UN)—such as the
United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations
High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the World Food Programme (WFP)
—key Western
nations and organisations—the United States, the European Union
(EU)
and their respective
aid entities, the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA)
and
the European Union
Humanitarian Office (ECHO)—international non-governmental
organisations (INGOs)—like
CARE, the International Rescue Committee (IRC),
Médecins Sans
Frontières (MSF), Mercy Corps and Oxfam—affected governments,
and,
frequently, insurgency movements and an array of indigenous
non-governmental
organisations (NGOs).
Fourth, coordination, whether at the strategic or operational
level, implies
costs in both direct and organisational terms. In many
instances, participating
institutions
must weigh the costs of participating in coordinative
initiatives against
their desire for
neutrality and the perceived benefits of expending resources on
such
efforts rather than on
the provision of direct services. This environmental complexity
suggests the
need to distinguish between operational coordination among
humanitarian
actors and strategic
coordination among those entities and other military, state or
political
actors. This article
is most concerned with operational coordination among
humanitarian
organisations,
although it does seek to situate those efforts in their broader
strategic
context.
In light of the
organisational incentives at play, as well as the structural
complexity of
the institutional
environment, the academic literature has been concerned with
seeking
to understand better
what conditions and characteristics of organisational structure
and operation
might lead to improved service delivery processes and outcomes
in
humanitarian relief
scenarios (see, for instance, Moore et al., 2003; Minear, 2002).
In
the absence of a
single institution possessing authority and responsibility to
require
humanitarian
organisations of all stripes to coordinate their activities,
many researchers
have argued that the
UN should be given sufficient powers to pursue a ‘coordination
by command’
approach, a top-down style of ensuring inter-organisational
coordination.
However, this notion
is quite contentious among NGOs and UN agencies and
staff alike.
Trust in, and
coordination within, an inter-organisational
network
While the UN has
developed an Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
(OCHA), which
has pursued its remit with seriousness and some success, OCHA
does not enjoy
command and control authority over even the many UN entities
often
engaged in
humanitarian relief let alone over the other organisations
involved in these
emergencies (Reindorp
and Wiles, 2001). As Larry Minear, a leading researcher in
this field has
remarked, ‘In my judgment, the continuing absence of effective
coordination
structures remains the
soft underbelly of the humanitarian enterprise’ (Minear,
2002, p. 21).
To encourage improved coordination, Minear, like many others, as
noted
Making humanitarian
relief networks more effective 339
above, has
consistently called for a UN agency to be given authority to
command the
players in the field
to undertake or share certain functions to maximise the
effectiveness
with which their
resources may be deployed. Minear, however, recognises that this
proposition is
open to debate and that neither the various UN agencies nor the
key
donor nations have
thus far assented to it. Indeed, he has acknowledged that both
have
actively resisted it (Minear,
2002, p. 22).
Consequently, rather
than continue to demand that the present organisation of
humanitarian
actors be changed to accord with a principal-agent view of
organisational
coordination—an
eventuality that may be desirable but thus far has not been
secured
—this paper explores
instead the question of whether it might be useful to argue that
increased cooperation
among humanitarian relief organisations operating in a given
emergency
setting be achieved by means of a particular form of increased
coordination
via inter-organisational
consensus building. More specifically, this essay looks at
whether
it might be useful to
conceive of humanitarian organisations involved in relief work
in a specific
instance as engaged in a social network and seek to build a
common set of
claims on that basis.
If so, these organisations might be encouraged to build
individual
cultures and finally,
if possible, a shared culture of what Weick and Sutcliffe (2001)
have dubbed
‘collective sense making’, which might serve to ensure at least
a modicum
of operational
cooperation across successive cases of engagement. Accepting
such a
challenge requires the
analyst to consider the forms of cooperation necessary in these
settings as
well as the contextual conditions likely to exist within them.
Sense making
demands a degree of
trust among participants and in this instance that trust clearly
would have to
exist on different levels and perhaps be of different types to
encourage
inter-organisational
coordination.
To address these
concerns, the paper first describes the structure and context of
organisational
relationships in humanitarian intervention scenarios in order to
characterise
the forms of
cooperation and coordination that may be at play within them. It
illustrates
that context in light of constructs drawn from the relevant
literature on the role
of trust in
organisational effectiveness and in inter-organisational
networks respectively.Next, it posits the elements of a strategy
that draws on the work of Karl Weick (1993),which may help
researchers and organisational leaders alike to develop
mechanisms that
increase the
likelihood of improved coordination, even if a more thorough
top-down
humanitarian relief
regime is not attained. Whatever the means finally selected,
realising
this potential is
clearly important if these organisations, individually and
collectively, are
to maximise their
potential effectiveness in situations of catastrophic need.
This argument
overall should be understood as resting on two premises. First,
different
levels of coordination
demand different responses and some are more plausible than
others. In
short, this contention is a call to contextualise our
theoretical understanding
of these
concerns on both the strategic and operational fronts. Thus, it
is not a review of
how coordination works
or does not work per se, but rather a call to reframe the issue
in view of an
alternate theoretic perspective. Second, coordination itself
implies costs
and organisations may
be more or less willing to bear them as their leaders and
representatives
calculate the costs
and benefits of doing so (Stockton, 2002). Hence, at least
Max Stephenson,
Jr. 340 in some cases, it may be reasonable for an organisation
not to pursue improved coordination
if the
perceived benefits appear to exceed the likely costs. This
article does
not offer an
exploration of such instances but it does seek to provide a
theoretical
perspective that might
aid in understanding their incidence and in overcoming their
potential
long-run negative effects.
Mapping the strategic
and operational context
Minear (2002,
p. 20) has argued that ‘[c]oordination is multilayered,
involving the
orchestration of
relationships not only at headquarters but also at the regional,
national
and field levels’. He
has also suggested that ‘[c]oordination involves responding to
life-and-death
emergencies that take unexpected twists and turns. Coordination
is a
messy, dynamic and
evolving process. The crises that created the humanitarian
emergencies
in the first place
ensure that this will be true’ (Minear, 2002, p. 21).
Likewise, he has
observed that effective coordination requires a number of policy
instruments so
as to ensure the delivery of services in a ‘cohesive and
coherent manner’
(Minear, 2002, p. 20).
The strategies of choice include strategic planning, information
gathering and
sharing, resource mobilisation, common accountability
frameworks,assuring a shared division of labour in the field,
maintaining workable relations with
host
governments and vigorous leadership.The difficulty is, of
course, that all of these instruments must be deployed in
contexts
that often lack a
strong central authority. Of the tools listed, therefore, the
most frequently
deployed (or attained)
is information gathering and sharing. Regardless of the
instrument,
it is hostage, to a
very significant extent, to the willingness of the donors
(especially)
and participating
organisations to adopt it. According to one IRC humanitarian
field
officer who worked in
the Kosovo crisis of 1999, OCHA has become quite adept at
ensuring that
such information is shared widely among organisations involved
in humanitarian
relief emergencies.1
Less often, UN organisations, bilateral donor entities, INGOs
and NGOs are
able to share information sufficient to satisfy common
accountability
claims and to achieve
clear divisions of labour. Indeed, dividing tasks effectively
remains
a key challenge, since
not even the UN participants play the same role in each
emergency
(see, for example,
Minear et al., 1994). In the former Yugoslavia, for instance,
UNHCR served as
the principal agency because donors and UN leaders perceived the
refugee issue
as critical in that situation. Obviously, NGOs and donors do
not, and
need not, fulfil the
same roles in each emergency. Consequently, the strategic
playing
field is dynamic, the
institutional actors are equally dynamic and the game itself is
subject to
change since there are no fixed rules concerning which
institutions perform
which roles.
This
description reminds one of the famous croquet game in
Alice’s Adventures in
Wonderland,
in which the balls were live hedgehogs that moved
about and complained
and really
never quite played their expected roles. The mallets were live
flamingos that
were puzzled at being
asked to assume this role and proved quite unwilling to be used
in their
assigned capacity despite Alice’s efforts to secure a different
result. In addition,
Making humanitarian
relief networks more effective 341
there were no
accepted rules concerning who should go first, or, indeed, any
rules at
all. And all the while
this chaos or near chaos ruled, the Queen of Hearts rushed
about the
playing field calling for the heads of all those whose actions
she either did
not like or did not
understand (Carroll, 1897 standard 6/edition, 1982). Like the
Queen’s
croquet ground, the
humanitarian landscape is populated by different agents who
jealously guard
their agency, a foundation that is both insecure and dynamic,
and there
is a lack of firmly
accepted behavioural norms among the participants concerning how
to relate to
one another. As in Carroll’s fantastical croquet match, these
participants
take the field amidst
an overarching situation characterised by few or swiftly
changing
rules and expectations
punctuated by a chorus from the interested who exclaim
loudly that
‘something’ must be done and soon or the implications will not
be pretty
for either the
afflicted or the would-be care providers.
Overall, the
literature suggests, as do a limited number of personal
interviews2
conducted in late 2004
with three humanitarian relief workers, that the context of
relief
operations exhibits
the following characteristics:
• Multiple
organisations with multiple missions and different frames of
accountabilityon different scales—UN, single nation/bilateral,
host nation, NGOS, INGOs—and
with no single
agency to coordinate their actions authoritatively.
• Participating
organisations share a concern that relief occurs efficiently and
effectively
on the operating level
but in ways that serve their perceived institutional interests
and missions.
This orientation may or may not facilitate coordination among
and
between organisations,
depending on other contextual factors.
• By definition, the
stakes in relief scenarios are high for participating
organisations
and those afflicted.
• Most organisations
are connected to one another in principle through their desire
to provide aid
effectively but they are tied to each other only episodically in
practice
and in widely varying
ways (short-term or fiscal year contracts, information sharing
and a broadly
shared interest in alleviating and preventing suffering).
• Given the urgency and
the multifaceted character and complexity of humanitarian
organisations’
operating environments, mistakes are likely and these may have
profound
ramifications for
those served as well as for the relief organisations.
• Turnover among
humanitarian organisation staffs is high and many workers are
not even
full-time members of the entities with which they are serving.
Instead they
are contract hires
with limited experience and training, who are expected to work
long hours
under difficult conditions for a limited period.
• The ‘facts’ of the
situations being addressed are often unclear or in dispute:
whether
the emergencies are
human produced (war, genocide, terror) or natural (earthquakes,
floods,
famine).
• Time pressures are
real for all organisations concerned. Often, an inadequate
response
can mean death or
injury or profound loss for hundreds or thousands of people.
• Host nations differ
strongly in their institutional and fiscal capacities, as well
as in
their political
willingness to respond to the emergencies within their bounds.
Max Stephenson,
Jr. 342 • In-country NGOs may vary widely in their capacity to
partner UN or INGO bodies
in offering
relief and are likely to guard their autonomy jealously whatever
their
capabilities.
• Accurate information
concerning the needs of those displaced or suffering is critical
and typically
difficult to obtain with accuracy.
• Many organisations
active in humanitarian relief work together in nations in
successive
emergencies so there
is at least general awareness—at the institutional level in any
case—among them
of the aims and competencies of at least some other principalsin
the field.3
Humanitarian
interventions as loosely coupled interorganisational
network
environments
One way to conceive of
this organisational context and its jumble of loosely connected
entities in a
particular case is to imagine that it constitutes an inter-organisational
and
multifunctional
network aimed at creating and sharing knowledge (of conditions)
and
disseminating that
knowledge to network participants to mobilise resources to
address
those circumstances.
Viewed in this way, the challenge to network participants is
both
to ensure an accurate
rendering of needs and to mobilise the appropriate organisations
or portions of
organisations in the humanitarian network to respond rapidly and
effectively
to those needs.
However, as is well recognised, this does not just happen across
organisations.
It must be organised and nurtured. It must occur in ways, as
Minear (2002,p. 20) reminds us, that cross humanitarian
(participant) organisation boundaries if the
appropriate
capacities are to be brought to bear in appropriate places and
in ways that
alleviate suffering.
Donors, OCHA and other network members must see it as
advantageous
or at least not
disadvantageous to cooperate and to coordinate their activities
with others so
as to maximise collective effectiveness. Information and
knowledge
are needed by all
network participants to develop the forms of cooperation
necessary
among the
organisations to enable rapid adaptation to what is, by
definition, a turbulent
and uncertain
environment.
Following Grandori and
Soda (1995), Newell and Swan (2001, p. 1292) have identified
three major
forms of inter-organisational networks. Each of these network
types
appears to be
characterised by different forms of coordination. According to
Newell
and Swan (2001, p.
1292):
Social networks are
based primarily on personal and interpersonal exchange (such as
an
alumni network). In
contrast, bureaucratic networks are underpinned by formal
agreements
and formally identified
roles and coordination mechanisms (such as a research
consortium).
Proprietary networks are
both relatively formal and are also founded on some financial or
intellectual property
rights (such as a joint venture).
Irrespective of
network type, effective inter-organisational coordination
demands
that institutional
boundaries be bridged so available assets (broadly understood)
may
Making humanitarian
relief networks more effective 343
be mobilised or
shared to address the common claim (the immediate humanitarian
emergency).
Coordination is
essential both to provide services effectively and to overcome
the barriers
implicit in working within an environment of at least
quasi-autonomous
units. Social networks
are characterised by the fewest formal coordination mechanisms
while
proprietary networks exhibit the most (Grandori and Soda, 1995).
The ‘typical’
humanitarian relief environment (if one exists) appears to
include a
relatively weak
bureaucratic network and a social network of variable strength.
Rarely
are humanitarian
organisations joined in strongly proprietary ways. Table 1 below
illustrates the
typical actors and incentives for interaction available in
humanitarian
relief scenarios.
Trust, networks and the
humanitarian environment
Organisation scholars
agree that trust is an essential attribute for cross-organisation
cooperation or
coordination (Noteboom and Six, 2003). Organisation development
specialists
have sought for some years to build trust among firms in the
business sector
to reduce transaction
costs and to curb the potential for exploitative opportunism in
inter-organisational
relationships. Scholars examining the role of trust in these
sorts
of dealings have
‘widely acknowledged that trust can lead to cooperative
behaviour
among individuals,
groups and organizations’ (Jones and George, 1998, p. 531). It
seems
likely that trust
plays a vital role in establishing the conditions for effective
coordination
among otherwise
separate organisations in the humanitarian relief environment.
Table I
Humanitarian relief network actors, revenue types and incentives
to cooperate
Organisation type Roles
Revenues and incentives
United Nations
• Single year contracts with INGOs and NGOs
awarded by
specific UN entities—UNHCR,
UNICEF etc.
• Coordination
responsibility via OCHA,
including
accountability claims.
• Resource
mobilisation and alignment.
Donor
governments • Fiscal year donations.
• Emergency donations
to all other network
participants.
• Shared mission
claims.
INGOs • Donor-derived
revenues.
• Contracts with UN and
donor governments.
• Resource
mobilisation and alignment.
NGOs •
Donor-derived revenues.
• Contracts with host
governments and INGOs.
• Information
sharing.Host governments
• Own source
revenues and donor-derived
revenues.
• Unique knowledge of
political and sociallandscape.
Max Stephenson, Jr. 344
Trust has been defined in numerous ways and analysed in a
variety of contexts. While there is no single ‘correct’ view of
trust, Zaheer et al. (1998) have offered a tripartite definition
that appears to capture many of the essential attributes of the
idea. For these authors, trust is ‘the expectation that an actor
(1) can be relied on to fulfill obligations, (2) will behave in
a predictable manner, and (3) will act and negotiate fairly when
the possibility for opportunism is present’ (Zaheer et al.,
1998, p. 143). This conceptualisation entails first, an
‘expectation’ rather than a ‘conviction’, meaning that there is
the possibility
of betrayal, an inherent
feature of trust (Zaheer et al., 1998, p. 143). Zaheer et al.
also distinguish between dispositional and relational trust. The
former centres on an individual’s attitudes regarding the
trustworthiness of others in general while the latter is
concerned with interactions with a particular person in a
specific dyad. This distinction is important in network dynamics
as it points up the likelihood that individual participants must
first be disposed to trust and thereafter, actually be willing
to extend trust to another across organisational boundaries.
This implies the importance of different forms of trust in
inter-organisational relationship building. Indeed, previous
research suggests that there are a variety of types of trust
(see, for example, Sako, 1992; Zaheer et. al., 1998; Jones and
George, 1998; Ring and Van de Ven, 1994; Meyerson et. al., 1996;
Newell and Swan, 2000; Bouresma et al., 2003). Table 2
summarises these scholars’ specific constructs—following Newell
and Swan (2000). It depicts four basic types of trust that
typify organisational relationships, including those that are
constructed on the basis of personal ties, those built on
contextual cues, those that are developed on the basis of
perceived competence and those that result from contractual
obligations. Table 2 suggests strongly that the burden for the
would-be coordinator in humanitarian relief situations is to
develop the conditions in which participants in some
organisations accord participants in others a sufficient measure
of the most effective forms of trust available. This would
enable players to cooperate sufficiently to offer a coherent
strategy or to maximise the effective use of scarce resources in
rapidly evolving environments.Two characteristics of the
environment make this task somewhat more auspicious than an
attempt simply ‘to herd cats’. First, INGOs and principal donor
government agencies often work together in successive
emergencies. CARE, the IRC and MSF, for example, may be expected
to provide aid wherever needed and so often work on emergencies
in nations together. To that extent, their strengths and
weaknesses, as well as missions
and operating routines,
may become better known to donors and to other INGOs and
governments. This makes the humanitarian environment somewhat
more stable than it otherwise might be. Yet, these organisations
often hire short-term contract employees
to help with emergencies
and these individuals are often untried or inexperienced, a fact
that carries with it considerable risk. Thus, while these
‘known’ institutional quantities may yield a disposition to
trust other organisational players based on their perceived
competence, that
disposition is likely to be a qualified one. If this is so with
competence-based trust, it is likely to be particularly true for
swift trust. Swift trust is extended only for limited periods on
the basis of perceived capacity. While participants may trust a
participant at the start of their relationship in a relief
Making humanitarian relief networks more effective 345
situation, a single miscue can foul this opportunity for the
remainder of the emergency and certainly for organisational
relations in the next. Moreover, even the regular staff of these
organisations turns over rapidly and so the ability of an
official in one organisation to be able to know well a
professional in one or more organisations involved in a
humanitarian effort and to leverage that friendship tie on
behalf of improved cooperation or coordination among their
organisations is likely to be limited. That is, the would-be
coordinator/facilitator of humanitarian action may not simply
count on companion-based trust to assure inter-organisational
cooperation either. In addition, the capacities of NGOs will
vary from nation to nation and even year to year within
countries, as does the political and fiscal will of affected
governments to cooperate. Finally, donor interests and
inclinations may also change with the specific context and over
time, so these too may not simply be taken for granted. As with
the Queen of Hearts’ croquet game, both the rules and the site
of humanitarian action may change even as the match proceeds. As
for commitment-based trust, if a coordinator must rely on ‘the
contract’ to secure cooperation and coordination, it seems
likely that matters between the organisations involved have
already descended to a difficult place. Commitment without the
other forms of trust is unlikely to yield coordination on a
sustained basis (Dirks and Ferrin, 2001; Newell and Swan, 2000).
The opposite is not true, making this form of trust perhaps the
most formal but also in many respects, paradoxically, the most
fragile. This analysis helps one to understand better what forms
of trust might be available, as well as when to seek to secure
coordination across organisational boundaries in humanitarian
emergencies. None of these types of trust can confidently be
assumed to be available in every instance or even in particular
relief episodes. That said, this is not to argue that these
possible avenues for cooperation should not be explored or that
participants and
would-be coordinators should not look to employ them. On the
contrary, to the extent that competence-, commitment- and
companion-based trust can be used to foster cooperation, they
should be so utilised.
Companion The trust that
an organisation boundary spanner (those individuals actively
interacting with members of another organisation) places in a
counterpart in a network organisation that is based on judgments
of goodwill or friendship. Competence Trust that is extended
based on the perceived ability of the other to carry out needed
tasks. Commitment Describes a setting in which parties will
trust one another as long as each behaves in a fashion consonant
with contractual agreements between the parties. Swift Trust
that is based on the reality that it is easier to extend trust
than it is not to do so in conditions when individuals and
organisations will work together only for short periods. Based
on contextual cues rather than inter-personal ties. Max
Stephenson, Jr. 346 Nevertheless, it seems clear that none of
these forms of trust typically exists in the humanitarian
environment because participating organisations or their
employees selfconsciously define open and rapid coordination as
in their self-interest and seek to pursue that end as a part of
their central vision. Trust is a necessary but perhaps not
sufficient condition for effective inter-organisational
coordination in emergency relief situations. Another set of
dispositions or habits of action embedded in the organisational
cultures of the institutions involved might be needed. Weick’s
conception of collective sense making (Weick, 1993) may provide
just the sorts of characteristics desired to encourage
organisational capacity to secure coordination in a dynamic and
often ‘headless’ environment.4 Collective rationality, sense
making, organisational culture and boundary spanning in a
turbulent environment The humanitarian environment relies on the
principals involved in the organisations to develop sufficiently
robust ties of trust to secure coordination in the absence of a
strong central agent formally requiring it. However, such trust
is unlikely to develop
a priori
to
ensure inter-organisational cooperation given the competing
incentives and
turbulence present in the environment. Perhaps, therefore,
would-be coordinators and organisation leaders alike should
consider a strategy that seeks to secure change in the
organisational operating routines and cultures of the major UN
and INGO entities that commonly are critical in relief
operations in ways that support trust and that address the
complexities of humanitarian relief environments. These changes
would be aimed at ensuring that major relief organisations
encourage their employees to boundary span, to secure improved
cohesion across organisations, as they sought to deliver relief
services. In short, in lieu of a top-down strategy of hierarchic
integration and coordination, OCHA and major donors might work
with important humanitarian partners to refashion their
organisational cultures to align them more closely with the
demands of the environment in which they operate. Such a stance
would require, though, that participating organisation leaders
recognise the transitory character of their operating
environment and find means to integrate inter-organisational
coordination into their conception of their institution’s core
mission. The connection between coordination and the provision
of key services as understood by each major humanitarian
organisation would have to become paramount for all involved
organisations if it ever is to evolve to the degree needed to
drive their cultures. This is a very complex contention. It is
not underpinned or driven simply by a rationalist calculation of
narrowly defined organisational demands but a communitybased
claim that improved coordination will yield better outcomes for
those being served. That, of course, may not always be so. That
caveat acknowledged, this stance would require building teams in
primary humanitarian organisations that abandoned more
traditional forms of rationally derived thinking concerning
top-down coordination in favour of a contextual rationality
driven foremost by the needs of the clients being served. Weick
(1993, pp. 634–635) has described contextual rationality as:Making humanitarian
relief networks more effective 347 Action motivated to create and
maintain institutions and traditions that express some
conceptions of right behavior and a good life with others.
Contextual rationality is sensitive to the fact that social
actors need to create and maintain intersubjectively binding
normative structures that sustain and enrich their
relationships.
‘Right behaviour’ in the
humanitarian context would require placing the need for
coordinated action above immediate demands for organisational
salience or aggrandisement.
Contextual rationality
is closely linked to sense making, which Morgan et al. (1983, p.
24) argue views individuals in a particular way:
Individuals are not seen
as living in, and acting out their lives in relation to, a wider
reality, so much as creating and
sustaining images of a wider reality, in part to rationalize
what they are doing. They realize their
reality, by reading into their situation patterns of significant
meaning.
In the present case,
professionals in humanitarian organisations would need to be
encouraged strongly by their organisational leaders not only to
exchange information on their operations but also to develop a
shared sense, an ethos, that to do so was not only necessary but
also critical to their institution’s success and to how they
ordered their own lives. Since structure and roles would not
routinely span organisation lines and since the participants
themselves could be expected to change frequently, organisation
leaders would need to encourage new hires to adopt a fierce
determination to make boundary spanning work in the name of
aiding clients. This would become an organisational expectation,
much as producing timely reports might be. Weick (1993, pp.
641–642) suggests that, among other attributes, such structures
(cultures) require that professionals acquire a habit and a
determination to seek order and to improvise even in chaotic
situations. Since humanitarian interventions create temporary
networks, it is important that relief organisations come to ask
their professionals to expect, accept and even thrive on
ambiguity while assuming that they can create conditions in
common with their counterparts in other organisations. These
capacities amount to a peculiar form of knowledge. According to
Weick (1993, p. 641), successful sense makers acquire certain
wisdom:
To be wise is not to know
particular facts but to know without excessive confidence or
excessive cautiousness . . . In a fluid world, wise
people know that they don’t fully understand
what is happening right now, because they have never seen
precisely this event before. Extreme
confidence and extreme caution both can destroy what
organizations most need in changing
times, namely curiosity, openness, and complex sensing.
When applied to
the humanitarian context, it seems clear that it is this
singular
characteristic that permits officials to create and recreate
inter-organisational ties and structures that secure more
effective services for clients. Max Stephenson, Jr. 348
Organisation leaders could expect that efforts to build staffs
characterised by the attributes of contextual rationality and
animated by an understanding of their role as sense makers would
reinforce the potentials of trust in social networks by
demanding ongoing and repeated conversation among principals in
the various organisations in the humanitarian environment. That
dialogue would be centred on the aim of securing the most
effective use of resources on behalf of those suffering. To the
extent that these communications occurred, they would heighten
the potential for bottom-up coordination and lead to more
effective inter-organisational relationships and thereby to
improved coordination among humanitarian organisations and
outcomes. Nonetheless, it appears important to acknowledge again
that coordination and cooperation a) require resources and b)
are not sufficient as normative aspirations themselves. There
may be circumstances in which increased coordination might lead
to the provision of fewer services by a given organisation
despite the inculcation of a contextual rationality among its
employees. Such instances might underscore the need for such an
orientation among an organisation’s employees rather than
undermine it, however, as its existence would appear to place
the various parties in a stronger position for future
interactions than would its absence.
The humanitarian relief
environment has long required, but just as long lacked, strongly
effective ways and means to secure operational coordination
among an array of quasiautonomous organisations. This paper has
argued that trust is critical to that possibility and that
various forms of inter-organisational interaction may lead to
differing forms of trust. More deeply, though, it may be that
the major humanitarian organisations need to re-imagine the task
of coordination itself. Instead of lamenting (or seeking to fend
off ) the dearth of top-down coordination mechanisms available,
perhaps these institutions and their clients would be better
served if they began to develop organisational cultures that
actively encouraged improved inter-organisational trust and
therefore more effective cooperation. One strategy for the
pursuit of this result would be active efforts to persuade their
leaders to adopt and act on a collective rationality and
sensemaking approach to their organisations’ missions and to the
training and development of their personnel. Over time, this
approach could reshape their respective organisational cultures
and result in improved inter-organisational coordination and
more effective outcomes for those served. All involved would
have to be patient for few tasks are more difficult than hanging
human attitudes and stances toward the world. But it can be
done.
This approach is surely
consistent with ongoing and even stronger attempts to find
common strategic and operational ground through authoritative
top-down efforts. OCHA could certainly encourage continuing
rationalist coordination efforts even as leaders sought to make
those types of initiatives obsolete. The result in the short-tomedium
term of such a combined effort might just be a mixed
top-down/bottom-up strategy. The combination yields many friends
even as it acknowledges the costs of coordination and
contextualises attempts to secure it.Making humanitarian relief
networks more effective 349 AcknowledgementsSpecial thanks to
Ms. Nicole Kehler for her very helpful support with research for
this
Max Stephenson, Jr.,
Co-Director, Institute for Governance and Accountabilities,
School of Public and International Affairs, Virginia Tech, 201
Architecture Annex, Blacksburg,
1 Interview with author,
30 September 2004.
2 Telephone interviews
lasting between 75 and 90 minutes were conducted on 30 September
and 11and 21 October 2004 with one current and two former staff
members of the International Rescue Committee, who served in
Kosovo in 1999, regarding their perceptions of coordination
during that crisis. Each has asked to remain anonymous.
3 For an insightful
evaluation of the relief response to the crisis in Kosovo in
1999, in which most of the aforementioned characteristics were
exhibited, see Suhkrke et al. (2002).
4 This is not to imply
that sovereign nations do not theoretically always play such
roles and actually do so in some instances—as in India and
Indonesia during the 2004 tsunami crisis—but, rather, to
acknowledge that such outcomes depend on the combination of a
specific set of attributes and capacities to obtain.
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