Purpose: This research studies the implications of inter/intra agency coordination mechanisms on corruption in Humanitarian aid as the phenomenon is still understudied (Melo and Quinn 2015) since the determinants of corruption have been scarcely discussed in the nonprofit sector (Epperly and Lee, 2015; Mohiuddin and Dulay, 2015). Indeed, Despite of many attempts of coordination, there is no global aid regulator to address aid shortcomings or a mechanism to eliminate non-performers or regulate excess capacity (Cooksey, 2012) which leads in many cases to duplications and inefficiency (Idris and Soh, 2014) and aid recipients benefit from inter-donor competition to get double funding for certain projects (Cooksey, 2012).
Design/Methodology/Approach: The confidentiality, the sensitivity of the topic, and the scarce literature in corruption lead the researcher to adopt the grounded theory as a method to help constructing a theoretical explanation of the phenomenon. Field observations data is used to build a model that was refined through interviewing data coming from respondents working in five humanitarian organizations in Lebanon. The data was compared to observations data leading to validating, and expanding the findings.
Findings: The findings of this study are related to lack of inter/intra agency coordination mechanisms which appear to be directly linked to corruption in humanitarian aid. This lack of coordination results in duplication as many humanitarian actors will be reaching the same beneficiaries and this duplication leading to corruption is aligned with recent studies that mentioned the lack of lessons learnt and experience sharing and their implications on aid delivery (Ghela and Bjanderi, 2016).
Research Limitations/implications: This study has few limitations because of the sensitivity of the topic, confidentiality issues, in and to potential bias resulting from the frustration of the interviewed staff. These limitations were dealt with through ensuring utmost anonymity and through deploying various techniques of reliability check in the data collection process.
Practical implications: This research proposes a corruption preventive model which serves as a tool driving better coordination practices in humanitarian aid. The results suggest that corruption could be drastically attenuated through reaching to effective coordination inside the same agency and across agencies to avoid duplicative and useless work.
Social implications (if available): This study focuses on human resources through analysing individual and group interactions in humanitarian aid organizations. It highlights the corruption caused by weak coordination practices and the dangerous impact of corruption in humanitarian aid, as it raises awareness among humanitarian aid managers and workers about the importance of preventing it through better coordination so that more vulnerable people are reached and that the donated money fulfils its intended target.
Originality/value: This work brings value to research on humanitarian aid as it considers the corruption phenomenon with new lenses focusing on individuals and groups rather than on systems thus opening new horizons of study away from the traditional stream of research on service delivery. With an insider look, the researchers shed the light on how flaws in inter/intra agency coordination practices can play a role in spreading corruption.
Keywords: humanitarian aid, corruption, human resources, coordination.
