With the exponential growth of Facebook users worldwide, this platform for social network online has become a powerful tool to connect individuals and share information with each other. This study explores the phenomenal trend of utilizing a Facebook application called Causes to help users organize into online communities for a specific cause and mobilize their resources for disaster relief during the Haiti earthquake disaster. Two separate samples of 100 joiners each from the American Red Cross (ARC) Cause on Facebook were randomly selected before and after the Haiti earthquake disaster to examine the differences of the composition (i.e., attributes) and structure (i.e., relational ties) of each social network. The social network analysis performed for this thesis research intends to fill the gap of historical research literature on recruitment to activism and support provision following a disaster in the digital age of the 21 st century. The results of this study show how understanding the membership size of online communities, salient identity for the cause through organizational affiliations, interpersonal ties among the joiners, density of the network as well as gender diversity can be crucial recruitment factors to leverage for disaster relief efforts. The findings reveal a beneficial partnership between disaster relief organizations and online social networks in mobilizing their resources for a speedy response to disasters.

Problem: Disasters cause massive destruction and their occurrence (even though declining since the last years) is still a topic of high actuality. To mitigate their negative impacts, in particular humanitarian organizations put a lot of effort into helping nations and people to recover from disasters by providing relief commodities. Responding adequately to a disaster is difficult due to its highly complex and uncertain nature. Flexible but efficient supply chains are needed, which makes high demands on procurement operations. Within disaster relief logistics, procurement accounts for 65 % of total expenditures. Despite its significance, literature does not specifically focus on problems related to disaster relief procurement, which creates the need to examine this topic further, from theory as well as from practice. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze sourcing policies, currently applied by the largest humanitarian organizations in the field of disaster relief. Method: This thesis conducted a descriptive and exploratory study of the literature in order to create a framework for a content analysis. During the content analysis, 108 officially published reports of the 14 biggest humanitarian organizations (concerning their annual budget) were investigated concerning their procurement policies in disaster response operations. Hence, this study uses a qualitative approach for a cross-sectional analysis of secondary data. Conclusions: The findings of this paper present an overview of currently applied procurement concepts in disaster response. The compilation of a comprehensive sourcing toolbox allows the classification of sourcing policies. The results show a tendency, that similar procurement policies are applied in the largest humanitarian organizations regarding the area of sourcing or the number of suppliers. A lack of awareness and/or transparency was discovered regarding environmentally friendly procurement policies. The application of ethical procurement (social factors) is however highly emphasized by the organizations. An unexpected discovery was the importance of long-term agreements and the frequent application of tendering processes for supplier selection. Further research opportunities lie in the field of demand tailored sourcing instead of pre-stocking to reduce inventory costs or in the comparison of sourcing practices applied in big and small organizations. To sum up, humanitarian organizations not only focus on quick deliveries, also quality and cost efficiency are increasingly paid attention in the field of disaster response procurement.

This research emerged from the belief that merely economic explanations of rent seeking were too narrow and an interdisciplinary approach was needed to understand historical structural factors that contribute to particularistic exchanges. Rent-seeking and particularistic ties are almost always explained from a strictly neoclassical perspective which tend to be reductionist approaches that fail to explain why some states will be rent-seeking while others will not. Moreover, other frameworks that analyze state-civil society interaction do so without taking into account particularistic state-civil society interaction. Thus, there is a need to explain such particularistic ties in a comparative institutional framework. My dissertation research was undertaken on two associations in Turkey, namely the Turkish Red Crescent (Kizilay) and AKUT (a search and rescue team), in order to understand the dynamics of the relationship between a particularistic state and civil society associations. The TRC was chosen because it was involved in particularistic exchanges and functioned as an institution of the state, which meant that it partook in the state failure the state in Turkey faced in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake in 1999. The Marmara earthquake was devastating not only physically in terms of the damage it caused, but also socially in terms of the extent of the failure of state institutions it exposed and the extent of criticisms it unleashed. The immediate chaos that ensued in the aftermath of the earthquake was marked by the "absence of the state". The failure of the state provoked an unprecedented civil reaction and mobilization. AKUT, the second case of the research, also became the focus of public attention, albeit for completely the opposite reason. It was revered for the successful rescue work it carried out in the earthquake while the TRC was severely criticized for its failure to deliver services. / My dissertation research has shown that in cases of state failure, the state can only establish particularistic ties creating a multilevel chain system of particularized exchanges and fails to deliver public goods and services universally. Thus, the state co-opts a civil society organization into this chain system, demonstrated both by the TRC and AKUT. Furthermore, in cases of state failure, a civil society organization that has developed independently of the state becomes over-missionized with filling the gap created by state failure (AKUT), with public expectations and demands from AKUT far exceeding their self-defined goals and capabilities. Thus, ineffectiveness of the state does not translate into well-working civil society organizations. The absence of a capable state affects the nature of civil society organizations adversely. This finding is a direct contribution to the more general debate on the effectiveness of state institutions and the voluntary sector. More importantly, my research effectively shows that much of the dichotomous discussion of the state on the one hand, and civil society on the other, needs to be discarded. Such dichotomous thinking does not capture the complex interactions between the state and civil society organizations, as I have shown in the case of Turkey.

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited / On January 12, 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake occurred 16 miles west of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. The earthquake and ensuing destruction killed as many as 300,000 persons and displaced as many as 1.5 million more creating a humanitarian crisis and economic disaster of enormous scale. As the earthquake was in close proximity to the U.S. mainland, it was determined that three U.S. agencies would take leading roles: USAID would coordinate and lead the relief effort, the U.S. State Department would handle diplomatic issues and the Department of Defense (DoD) would take the lead on logistics and security issues. One social networking tool used by the DoD and relief organizations to share information and coordinate relief efforts was the All Partners Access Network (APAN). Communications between the various agencies were recorded and include chat logs, blogs and e-mails. A content analysis was conducted to develop insight into the way relief workers used APAN when responding during the Haiti humanitarian assistance / disaster relief (HA/DR) operation. Coding and analyzing the communication data collected during the relief effort provided insight into how individuals and organizations used APAN, a social networking tool, to collaborate during the disaster. Suggestions for improving APAN are discussed.

Background Developing, emerging and developed countries are vulnerable to disasters and might require external assistance to cope with their aftermaths. It is forecasted that disasters will increase five-fold over the next 50 years. In an environment, which is characterized by many uncertainties, humanitarian supply chains are created to provide disaster relief in a highly complex and dynamic setting. This environment is unique for every disaster, where infrastructure, government, physical, socio-economic and security situational factors can either facilitate or restrict humanitarian operations. Agile supply chain principles enable humanitarian organizations to quickly respond to disasters. Purpose The purpose of this thesis is to explore and analyze the impact of external situational factors on the agility of humanitarian supply chains and humanitarian organizations’ actions taken to address those external situational factors during the immediate response phase of an emergency event. Methodology For the purpose of this study a combination of an inductive and deductive research approach was applied. The study was of exploratory and qualitative nature with a single case study in its focus. Empirical data was collected by conducting semi-structured interviews with nine respondents involved in the disaster relief operations of Haiti Earthquake 2010. Empirical findings were analyzed by using the template analysis. Conclusion External situational factors have a strong impact on capabilities enabling humanitarian supply chains to be agile during the immediate response phase. Humanitarian organizations are able to reduce the negative impact of external situational factors while in other cases the negative impact of external situational factors is further intensified by actions taken by humanitarian organizations. Furthermore, humanitarian organizations are able to utilize and enhance some of the positive impacts of external situational factors. However, the initially positive impact of some external situational factors may be reduced by inappropriate actions taken by humanitarian organizations. Therefore, understanding the context of the disaster’s broader environment is a prerequisite to an effective emergency response.

This thesis examines how humanitarian assistance and political aspects interact in complex humanitarian emergencies (CHEs) in both negative and positive ways, how to minimize negative outcomes, and how humanitarian assistance can contribute to conflict resolution. Although humanitarian assistance has long been considered to be separate from politics, the division between the two has posed serious difficulties for humanitarian aid agencies responding to disasters and even has resulted in negative impacts on political and humanitarian aspects. In order to confront CHEs today, humanitarians need to collaborate conceptually and practically with political actors, while political actors need to be sensitive to humanitarian needs. A priority is considered the minimalist position, aiming at "doing no harm." Under the right circumstances, the maximalist approach can be viewed as an opportunity for maximizing the effects of humanitarian efforts to alleviate people's suffering and contributing to conflict resolution by employing humanitarian assistance as a powerful instrument.

Organizational development is a central purpose of evaluation. Disasters and other emergency situations carry with them significant implications for evaluation, given that they are often unanticipated and involve multiple relief efforts on the part of INGOs, governments and international organizations. Two particularly common reasons for INGOs to evaluate disaster relief efforts are 1) accountability to donors and 2) desire to enhance the organization s response capacity. This thesis endeavors briefly to review the state of the evaluation field for disaster relief so as to reflect on how it needs to go forward. The conclusion is that evaluation of disaster relief efforts is alive and well. Though evaluation for accountability seems fairly straightforward, determining just how the evaluation influences the organization and beyond is not. Evaluation use has long been a central thread of discussion in evaluation theory, with the richer idea of evaluation influence only recently taking the stage. Evaluation influence takes the notion of evaluation use a few steps further by offering more complex, subtle, and sometimes unintentional ways that an evaluation might positively better a situation. This study contributes to the very few empirical studies of evaluation influence by looking at one organization in depth and concluding that evaluation does influence in useful ways.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Duquesne University, 2007. / Title from document title page. Abstract included in electronic submission form. Includes bibliographical references (p. 85-90).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Baylor University, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 211-219).

Thesis (Ed.D.) -- Teachers College, Columbia University, 1990. / Typescript; issued also on microfilm. Sponsor: William C. Sayres. Dissertation Committee: George C. Bond. Includes bibliographical references :(leaves 200-214).