As the complexity and variability of earthquake disaster relief coordination intensify, systematically clarifying emergency collaboration management systems and analyzing the current status and shortcomings of earthquake emergency response capabilities hold significant practical value. Therefore, this study took the emergency collaboration during the 2023 Jishishan earthquake as its research object, dividing the collaboration process into non-routine and routine phases; it also employed social network analysis to construct a collaboration network model. Metrics such as network centrality, core-periphery structure, and the external-internal index were used to investigate the network characteristics and effectiveness across different emergency phases, evaluate the overall efficacy of emergency collaboration, and provide insights for optimizing network synergy. The results indicated distinct organizational role characteristics between the non-routine and routine phases, with provincial-level units playing a core role in leadership and coordination. Organizational efficiency was higher in the non-routine phase, in which strategic choices by the central government strongly drive those of provincial/prefectural governments. Meanwhile, the routine phase exhibited features dominated by stronger local principles and autonomy. The national-level sector cohesion was significantly lower than that of provincial/prefectural sectors, indicating persistent partial decentralization in emergency management functional delineation, suggesting that the organizational system for comprehensive emergency management requires further refinement. Therefore, efforts should be made to strengthen inter-departmental collaborative capabilities and improve the organizational structure.