Illuminating the mechanisms of trust building for inter-organisational relationships within humanitarian operations

Purpose – To help alleviate the immense suffering caused by humanitarian crises worldwide, organisations are forming relationships for effective coordination and resource sharing. However, organisations can struggle to build trust because of the uncertain context, varying institutional mandates and socio-cultural differences. Thus, this paper aims to better understand how humanitarian groups can leverage formal mechanisms to produce greater trust. Design/methodology/approach – This paper adopts a logical–positivist research paradigm to formulate and test its hypotheses. This paper answered this study’s research question using structural equation modelling from survey data of 180 humanitarian managers. Findings – In inter-organisational humanitarian relationships, formal mechanisms indirectly foster trust through two mediators: distributive justice and information sharing. Research limitations/implications – This research presents the perspective of only one partner in inter-organisational relationships. Moreover, the operationalisations of formal mechanisms and trust were not comprehensive (i.e. only contracts and integrity-based trust, respectively). Originality/value – To the best of the author’s knowledge, this research is a first attempt to empirically link the widely discussed idea of formal mechanisms, distributive justice, information sharing and trust in inter-organisational humanitarian relationships. Further, this research is the first attempt to present and empirically validate a theoretical model that addresses how formal mechanisms foster trust in inter-organisational relationships.