The expansion mechanism of the cooperative networks of supply support organizations in a public health emergency

The outbreak of COVID-19 has significantly restricted the productive capacity of society and resulted in a shortage of supplies to maintain survival. Lightening the burden not only depends on government agencies, but also needs extensive social organization participation. However, few studies focus on how to promote social cooperation to support the provision of emergency supplies. This study aimed to find out the theoretical mechanism to expand the cooperative networks of supply support organizations during the epidemic. Data from the emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic in China were used. Three cooperative networks from a progressive perspective were constructed based on the cooperative relationships among organizations. The expansion mechanism was verified by the exponential random graph model. The results show that when the institutional network expands into an interactive network, the composition of organization types has changed, but the cooperative network’s efficiency does not improve much. The matching effect of the organizational type and the Matthew effect of nodes are both effective paths to promote cooperative network expansion, however, the structure effect shows that complex relationship structure is not a critical factor. Our findings highlight the importance of core organizations and the function of different types of organizations in building cooperative network as well as providing theoretical frameworks for policymakers to use in guiding and motivating social cooperation in emergency supplies.