Improving the Understanding of Disaster Support Contractor Performance: A Hierarchical Regression Analysis

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is the leading U.S. federal agency entrusted to deliver disaster assistance in the U.S. In the past, companies under contract to FEMA have sometimes failed to successfully deliver disaster support goods and services. The problem was that given the considerable efforts to address past failed attempts to properly deliver disaster assistance, government officials remain unable to fully explain such failures that have resulted in the lost economic opportunities for disaster survivors and affected communities. Post-disaster research has found that the four organizational culture types of disaster response organizations and support contractors have an impact on disaster assistance delivery performance. Though research indicates that internal and external supply chain integration practices can mediate the relationship between organizational culture and delivery performance, such research has yet to be applied to disaster response scenarios. The purpose of this quantitative, correlational study was to assess the mediating effect of supply chain integration practices by determining the extent to which supply chain integration practices intervene in the relation between the type of organizational culture and the delivery performance of disaster support contractors. The study utilized a nonexperimental research design and quantitative correlational research method with a cross-sectional survey design. A total of 45 key management representatives employed by FEMA disaster support contractors completed the online survey. Mediation analyses were performed to determine whether internal and external supply chain integration practices were a mediating variable in the relationship between each of the four organizational culture types and delivery performance. External supply chain integration practices was shown to be a partial mediator in the relationship between Hierarchy organizational culture and delivery performance (p =.009). No mediating effect was found amongst all the other potential mediation relationships. Further research should include a larger sample of government disaster support contractors in order to better understand the mediating relationship of supply chain integration practices when predicting delivery performance.