Author ORCID Identifier
Victorine Verlooy: 0009-0004-0237-752X
Maximilian Schreieck: 0000-0002-1937-8869
Abstract
Humanitarian organizations face an increasing number of crises worldwide while working with tight budgets. As demand for efficient operations rises, digitalization offers significant potential to transform humanitarian organizations. This paper explores the unique challenges and opportunities of digitalization within humanitarian settings, using Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) as an exploratory case study. The study shows that contextual factors, including cultural, political, infrastructural, and operational diversity, fundamentally shape the adoption and implementation of IT tools within dispersed organizational structures. Interpreting these findings through the lens of IT governance, we highlight a fundamental trade-off between centralized and decentralized governance approaches in humanitarian organizations. While centralized governance can enhance operational coherence and efficiency, it risks exacerbating power imbalances, undermining local autonomy, and failing to accommodate the extreme contextual diversity of operations. Our proposed model illustrates how governance structures are shaped by and must respond to contextual conditions, underscoring the need for dynamic governance approaches that can flexibly shift between centralized and decentralized modes.
Recommended Citation
Verlooy, V.,
&
Schreieck, M.
(In press).
Governing Digitalization in Humanitarian Organizations: An Exploratory Case Study of Médecins Sans Frontières Belgium.
Information Technology for Development.
Available at:
https://aisel.aisnet.org/itd/vol32/iss3/25