Analysing the inter-organisational relations in disaster management in Esfahan

Different aspects of efficiency in disaster management have direct relation to the coordination and cooperation in inter-organisational relations. In Iran, regardless of occurrence of different natural and man-made disasters, and their probability of occurrence, the analysis and due consideration of inter-organisational relations has not been applied in either disaster management or urban planning and management procedures. The leakage of raw petroleum into Zayandehroud River in 2008 in Esfahan is discussed in this paper as a case study in which disaster management and emergency response required the widespread inter-organisational coordination amongst administrative organisations and their rapid reaction in disaster management. This paper has tried to trace the actors which were involved in such an emergency condition and their inter-organisational relations in order to prescribe more efficient inter-organizational relations. In order to achieve this goal, a descriptive-analytical and analytical-prescriptive research process has been adopted by using document review methods and content analysis of interviews to find the active organisations in this process, to find the causal and contextual factors and reach some conclusions regarding the varied forms of inter-organisational relations. The findings of this paper indicated first the actors involved in the process of disaster management (comprising key actor, non-key actors which were directly engaged, and the actors which were indirectly engaged), second the forms of inter-organisational relations in the process of managing the disaster known as “trade associations”, and third the underlying theoretical framework was found to be “the organisational learning approach” in addition to the “Institutional approach”. It is on the basis of these findings that enhanced inter-organizational coordination and capability in response to such disasters can be conceived and prescribed.