Disaster Recovery: How Ad Hoc Marketing Systems Build and Mobilize Social Capital for Service Delivery

Communities are increasingly confronted with disasters that bring acute and chronic challenges. Previous research highlights the importance of ad hoc marketing exchange systems for expanding community resource capacities following a disaster. The current study builds on this research, taking a granular look at an existing ad hoc marketing system that provided exchange services before a disaster. Prior to an earthquake, this ad hoc system built three forms of social capital—structural, cognitive, and relational—and expanded latent capacities for self-organizing and learning. Following a natural disaster, the ad hoc marketing system flexed to meet individual and community needs. Specifically, three types of learning—routine, extended routine, and improvisational—emerged, mobilizing existing social capital to deliver recovery services and goods. This study highlights the delivery of recovery goods and services as an ad hoc marketing system evolved to become a learning system during the months and years of recovery. Implications are explored for citizens, municipalities, policy makers, and businesses by highlighting the importance of building and practicing diverse forms of social capital before a disturbance so that capacities can be mobilized during recovery.