Under “my way or the highway”! The weaker partner's synergy on collaborative performance in humanitarian relief when experiencing power tactics

PurposeMy way or the highway: A stronger partner in humanitarian relief collaboration often seeks control over its weaker partners by leveraging diverse power tactics that may be non-coercive or coercive in nature. In this backdrop, this research accentuates the perspective of weaker partners to und...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of operations & production management 2023-05, Vol.43 (7), p.1148-1173
Main Authors: Roy, Vivek, Prakash, Chandra, Charan, Parikshit
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Coercivity
Collaboration
Cooperation
Disaster relief
Efficiency
Humanitarianism
Operations management
Social exchange theory
Tactics
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Summary:PurposeMy way or the highway: A stronger partner in humanitarian relief collaboration often seeks control over its weaker partners by leveraging diverse power tactics that may be non-coercive or coercive in nature. In this backdrop, this research accentuates the perspective of weaker partners to understand how a weaker partner drives collaborative synergy under power tactics. Weaker partner in the collaborative dyad resembles the humanitarian organization (HO) who is less capable in terms of access to resources. This partner is further dependent on the stronger HO's directives to participate in the relief work.Design/methodology/approachBased on social exchange theory (SET), a collaborative dyad in humanitarian relief work is visualized from the perspectives of power and power disparity. In terms of power, mediated power tactics such as legal, coercive and reward powers are considered. Disparity recognizes the presence of a stronger and a weaker partner. Set also magnifies the insight on conflict and trust that can respectively hamper and improve the synergy between partners. In total, 295 executives representing self-reported weaker HOs are surveyed.FindingsLegal power, as experienced by the weaker partner, bears a positive impact over collaborative performance to improve collaborative synergy. Coercive power shows a negative impact. Reward power again bears a positive impact. Coercion can complicate collaborative synergy by establishing conflicts. Yet, the trust of weaker partner on stronger HO positively moderates the negative impact of conflict over collaborative performance.Originality/valueThis research invokes the view of power disparity to explain synergy in inter-organizational collaboration from the perspective of weaker partners.
ISSN:0144-3577
1758-6593
DOI:10.1108/IJOPM-12-2021-0749