Assessing the Level of Trust in the Humanitarian Supply Chain: The Cases of Study: the Fire-induced Collapse of Plasco Building, Shahran Gas Explosion, and Flash Flood in Tehran Subway

The present study aimed to investigate communication, information exchange, cooperation, and trust networks in Iran's Humanitarian Supply Chain at both inter-organizational and interpersonal levels.

This applied research was conducted based on a descriptive survey design. The statistical population of this research included the organizations and people involved in relief operations performed in three recent disasters: the fire-induced collapse of the Plasco building, Shahran gas explosion, and the flash flood in the Tehran subway. In order to analyze networks, a questionnaire containing network analysis questions was designed. Upon the completion of the questionnaires, the data of each network were entered systematically into a matrix on an excel spreadsheet. Such indexes as degree centrality, betweenness centrality, intersection points, isolation points, and network density were calculated by Ucinet and NetDraw software packages; therefore, the networks were analyzed.

Based on the results obtained from the analysis of communication, information exchange, and cooperation networks, the network density was 21%, indicating a low level of organizational relationship. At this level of communication, information exchange and cooperation were obtained at 11.5% and 16.5%, respectively. The analysis of the trust network also illustrated that the density of this network was 26.6%, suggesting that out of 21% of connections, there was about a quarter of possible trust. This is suggestive of low levels of inter-organizational Trust.

Building trust in Iran's humanitarian service supply chain can be very effective in the acceleration of service supply, organization, and success of relief operations