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In recent years, several performance indicators have been proposed in humanitarian supply chains (HSCs). Selecting the most relevant key performance indicators (KPIs) is challenging for some humanitarian organizations (HOs) because it involves a considerable amount of complexity and information overload which could lead to judgment biases in the decision-making process. Existing performance measurement studies lack critical analysis for prioritization of performance indicators. Since the process of KPIs selection and categorization is a complex, domain based and subjective process, a systematic guideline is needed. To address this gap, the purpose of this paper is to propose an integrated performance measurement scheme that can consolidate KPIs into an overall performance score based on the weighting of the performance indicators in HSCs.

Data collection was based on questionnaire surveys and direct interviews with practitioners from international HOs.

This paper proposes an integrated scheme based on balanced scorecard and analytic hierarchy process for performance evaluation of HOs.

The respondents were limited to the humanitarian logistics experts from Malaysian-based international HOs.

The scheme enables the benchmarking of HOs’ performance that could be useful for decision makers in HSCs.

This paper provides the ranking and prioritization of KPIs in HSCs. The approach presented in this paper enables an effective and integrated performance measurement in HSCs.

Variations in customer expectations pose a challenge to service quality improvement in the airline industry. Understanding airline customers' expectations and satisfaction help service providers improve their offerings. The extant literature examines airline passengers' expectations in isolation, neglecting the overall impact of online reviews on service quality improvement. This paper systematically evaluates the airline industry's passengers' expectations and satisfaction using expectation confirmation theory (ECT) and the SERVQUAL framework. The paper analyzes online reviews to examine the relationship between airline service quality attributes and passengers' satisfaction.

The SERVQUAL framework was employed to examine the effects of customer culture, the reason for traveling, and seat type on customer's expectations and satisfaction across a large sample of airline customers.

A total of 17,726 observations were gathered from the Skytrax review website. The lowest satisfaction ratings were from passengers from the USA, Canada and India. Factors that affect perceived service performance include customer service, delays and baggage management. Empathy and reliability have the biggest impact on the perceived satisfaction of passengers.

This research increases understanding of the consumer expectations through analysis of passengers' online reviews. Results are limited to a small sample of airline industries.

This study provides airlines with valuable information to improve customer service by analyzing online reviews.

This study provides the opportunity for airline customers to gain better services when airline companies utilize the findings.

This paper offers insights into passengers' expectations and their perceived value for money in relation to seat types. Previous studies have not investigated value for money as a construct for passengers' expectations and satisfaction relative to service quality dimensions. This paper addresses this need.

In recent years, the balanced scorecard (BSC) has received considerable interest among practitioners for managing their organization’s performance. Unfortunately existing BSC frameworks, particularly for humanitarian supply chains, lack causal relationships among performance indicators, actions, and outcomes. They are not able to provide a dynamic perspective of the organization with factors that drive the organization’s behavior toward its mission. Lack of conceptual references seems to hinder the development of a performance measurement system toward this direction. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The authors formulate the interdependencies among key performance indicators (KPIs) in terms of cause-and-effect relationships based on published case studies reported in international journals from 1996 to 2017.

This paper aims to identify the conceptual interdependencies among KPIs and represent them in the form of a conceptual model.

The study was solely based on relevant existing literature. Therefore further practical research is needed to validate the interdependencies of performance indicators in the strategy map.

The proposed conceptual model provides the structure of a dynamic balanced scorecard (DBSC) in the humanitarian supply chain and should serve as a starting reference for the development of a practical DBSC model. The conceptual framework proposed in this paper aims to facilitate further research in developing a DBSC for humanitarian organizations (HOs).

Existing BSC frameworks do not provide a dynamic perspective of the organization. The proposed conceptual framework is a useful reference for further work in developing a DBSC for HOs.

The house not only provides shelter and security but also is a reflection of human privacy. One of the important factors involved in house design is privacy. The current research is a case study that examines privacy's evolution in contemporary houses in Kerman using space syntax techniques.

This study is based on the quantitative approach of space syntax. A total number of 15 houses in Kerman built in three periods of Qajar, Pahlavi and the Islamic Republic, were examined for the space syntax indices using UCL DepthMap. The DepthMap outputs were also analyzed using one-way ANOVA.

The findings indicated that the arrangement of spaces in houses has altered over time from the 1920s onwards. There is a significant difference between houses of the Qajar, Pahlavi and the Islamic Republic eras, indicating a reduction in the hierarchy of access and reduced privacy in houses in the Islamic Republic.

Numerous factors affect privacy (e.g. confidentiality, interface spaces, quality of openings and visibility). Nevertheless, this study focused on the impact of spatial configuration on privacy. It can be stated that the design of houses from the Pahlavi period was gradually associated with changes in culture and modern architecture, leading to a decrease in privacy.

This study used space syntax to examine the evolution of privacy in contemporary Iranian houses. Since privacy is a substantial issue in the middle east communities, the findings can help designers and relevant organizations consider privacy as much as other comfort factors in the early stages of design.

Humanitarian supply chain (HSC) has been constantly challenged with multiple issues due to the complex dynamics of the disaster. These issues are inevitable and interrelated. The issues produce undesirable cascading effects that make performance measurement complicated. This paper aims to identify and model the critical barriers in the HSC.

The study identifies 17 barriers through the relevant literature and interviews with the stakeholders related to humanitarian organization (HO) in the developing economy. The barriers have been identified from strategic, technological, organizational, economic and operational point of view. Further, the barriers were ranked based on the degree of influence using the grey analytic network process (ANP) approach. The interrelationship among the influential barriers is established through modified total interpretive structural modelling (mTISM). To analyse and demonstrate the iterative consensus among the stakeholders, kappa statistics was adopted.

The barriers have been ranked to determine their extent of influence and modelled to reveal the interrelationship among them. The issues concerned with skills of personnel are the most influential barrier. Other three critical barriers identified are: chaotic operative environment, conflicting objectives of HO and lack of funding for information technology (IT) infrastructure. Appropriate funds need to be allocated towards IT infrastructure and personnel training.

Both quantitative and qualitative performance measurement frameworks had been proposed earlier for HSC. However, limited literature addresses the implementation issues with the available frameworks. This study advances the knowledge on performance measurement barriers of HSC and develops a functional description to identify the critical role of performance measurement in HOs. The study proposes a new version of the interpretive structure modelling, using mTISM technique, to determine the contextual interactions between various HSC performance measurement barriers.

Accessing adequate healthcare to all people is one of the main goals of the health sector. The purpose of this paper is to investigate healthcare services access development of the provinces in Iran during 2007 and 2013.

This is a descriptive cross-sectional study. The study population included all the provinces in Iran. The data for 13 variables, including physical and human health resources, was collected from the Ministry of Health and Medical Education and the Statistics Center of Iran. Taxonomy technique was used to determine the degree of healthcare services access development in the provinces.

The findings show that Semnan was the province with the most developed healthcare services access with development score of 0.342 while Sistan Balocehstan province was the least developed with development score of one in 2007. In the year 2013, Chahar-Mahal Bakhtiari and Sistan Baluchestan were the least and most developed provinces with scores of 0.551 and 0.989, respectively. The mean and standard deviation of the development scores in access to healthcare services in 2007 and 2013 were 0.7463±0.1268 and 0.7766±0.1058, respectively.

Most previous studies that examined disparities in access to healthcare resources in Iran only considered one resource. This study applied a taxonomy technique to investigate the disparity and changes in access using 13 main healthcare resources. This approach helped the authors to investigate whether the decisions of the policy makers were intended to eliminate the disparities.

The purpose of this paper is to study the role of organizational forgetting in the impact of strategic thinking on the implementation of an organizational excellence model. Furthermore, the factors with main effects on the implementation success of the organizational excellence model are investigated. The two main causes of organizational forgetting, including purposefulness and randomness, along with the three main factors of strategic thinking (vision, creativity and systematic thinking) also are explored. Enablers and results, which are the two key parts of an organizational excellence model are considered as well.

A model based on structural equations is designed, in which organizational forgetting factors, strategic thinking measures and main parts of a business excellence model are incorporated based on the literature. A total of 297 Iranian companies in which an organizational excellence model had been implemented are selected for investigation. A questionnaire is designed and distributed among the experts, middle managers and top managers of these companies. Based on Cochran’s formula, the sample size of 168 is obtained, for which the response rate is 100 percent. Main statistical measures such as χ² ratio to degree of freedom, non-soft fitness index (RMSEA), fitness index (GFI) and modified fitness index (AGFI) are used to assess the performance of the proposed model.

According to the results of the statistical significance tests, the role of organizational obsessive mediators in the establishment of the organizational excellence model has been largely confirmed. Furthermore, the mediator role of organizational forgetting in the final impact of strategic thinking on implementing an organizational excellence model has been widely endorsed. Failure to use knowledge from learning, the inability of a company in coding and documenting knowledge and lack of incentives to share it are the most important factors in the forgetting of knowledge in companies.

As top managers, middle managers and experts are hard to reach due to the wide geographical spread of the organization under study, a questionnaire is designed and distributed among them. The impact of organizational forgetting on other quality management systems such as ISO 9001 and ISO 4001 needs another research to be conducted in the future.

Using new experiences, increasing the competency of employees and managers experience through organizational learning, employee and managerial assessment and organizational strategy assessment are the main practical methods for considering organizational forgetting in the process of implementing organizational excellence models.

This research addresses organizational forgetting besides strategic thinking as joint main roles for implementing organizational excellence, whereas previous research works only considered strategic thinking as a factor. Furthermore, a structural equation model is developed for appraisal of effect of different factors.

This study aims to describe the compounding factors in a complex emergency, which exacerbate a cholera epidemic among vulnerable populations due to supply chain disruptions. Basic needs such as food, medicine, water, sanitation and hygiene commodities are critical to reduce the incidence rate of cholera and control the spread of infection. Conflicts cause damage to infrastructure, displace vulnerable populations and restrict the flow of goods from both commercial and humanitarian organizations. This study assesses the underlying internal and external factors that either aggravate or mitigate the risk of a cholera outbreak in such settings, using Yemen as a case study.

This study adopts a system dynamics methodology to analyze factors that influence cholera outbreaks in the context of the Yemeni Civil War. A causal loop diagram with multiple components was constructed to represent the complexities of humanitarian situations that require critical decision-making. The model was built using data from humanitarian organizations, non-governmental organizations and practitioners, along with literature from academic sources. Variables in the model were confirmed through semi-structured interviews with a field expert.

Compounding factors that influenced the cholera outbreak in Yemen are visualized in a causal loop diagram, which can improve the understanding of relationships where numerous uncertainties exist. A strong link exists between humanitarian response and the level of infrastructure development in a country. Supply chains are affected by constraints deriving from the Yemeni conflict, further inhibiting the use of infrastructure, which limits access to basic goods and services. Aligning long-term development objectives with short-term humanitarian response efforts can create more flexible modes of assistance to prevent and control future outbreaks.

The model focuses on the qualitative aspects of system dynamics to visualize the logistics and supply chain-related constraints that impact cholera prevention, treatment and control through humanitarian interventions. The resulting causal loop diagram is bounded by the Yemen context; thus, an extension of the model adapted for other contexts is recommended for further study.

This study presents a systematic view of dynamic factors existing in complex emergencies that have cause-and-effect relationships. Several models of cholera outbreaks have been used in previous studies, primarily focusing on the modes and mechanisms of transmission throughout a population. However, such models typically do not include other internal and external factors that influence the population and context at the site of an outbreak. This model incorporates those factors from a logistics perspective to address the distribution of in-kind goods and cash and voucher assistance.

This study has been aligned with six of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), using their associated targets in the model as variables that influence the cholera incidence rate. Recognizing that the SDGs are interlinked, as are the dynamic factors in complex humanitarian emergencies, the authors have chosen to take an interdisciplinary approach to consider social, economic and environmental factors that may be impacted by this research.

This paper provides an insight into the underlying inter-relations of internal and external factors present in the context of a cholera outbreak in a complex crisis. Supply chains for food; water, sanitation and hygiene; and health products are crucial to help prevent, control and treat an outbreak. The model exposes vulnerabilities in the supply chain, which may offer guidance for decision makers to improve resilience, reduce disruptions and decrease the severity of cholera outbreaks.

Pharmaceutical donations are a practical approach to increase medicine availability during disasters such as disease outbreaks. However, often donated pharmaceuticals are inappropriate and unsuitable. This convergence of inappropriate pharmaceuticals is a severe operational challenge and results in environmental hazards. This study explores the pharmaceutical supply chains (PSCs) during a disease outbreak to relieve the negative impact of the material convergence problem (MCP).

This study adopts a situation-actors-process learning-action-performance (SAP-LAP) linkage framework to understand the PSC dynamics. The problem-solving component of the SAP-LAP analysis provides the strategies catering to MCP. The findings from the SAP-LAP helped to develop the causal loop diagram (CLD). This study conducts several experiments on the proposed strategies by integrating CLD into a stock and flow diagram. Later, a disease outbreak case study accessed the pharmaceutical donations effect on PSC performance.

The study synthesises and evaluates propositions and strategies to incorporate circular economy (CE) principles in PSC. This study proposed two strategies; one to sort and supply and the other to sort, supply and resell. The reuse policy improves humanitarian organisations' finances in the simulation study. This study verified the operational improvement of PSC by reducing the transport and storage burden due to MCP.

This study comprehensively approaches the issue of drug donation and uniquely produced several propositions for incorporating a CE perspective in PSC. The study also proposed a unique simulation approach to model the donation arrivals in response to a disease outbreak using susceptible, exposed, infectious and recovered modelling.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and prioritize the lean implementation (LI) barriers in the context of labor intensive Indian ceramic industries through a statistically reliable and validated model.

In this study, LI barriers are identified through a comprehensive review of relevant literature and discussions held with academicians/practitioners. Identified barriers, thereafter, are evaluated with Cronbach's alpha values using a statistical tool. The interpretive ranking process (IRP) methodology is applied for ranking of the barriers with reference to the measurable performance indicators.

The study identified highly relevant barriers of Indian ceramic industries. Further, these barriers were compared with performance measures through a cross-interaction matrix developed in the IRP model. The model highlights the analysis of dominance relationship of different barriers. Moreover, the result shows that top management commitment and leadership is at the top of the model, followed by lack of training opportunity and skills, and resistance to change and adopt innovations indicating their strongest driving power in LI.

This model may enable the firms to understand the LI barriers and come up with sensible implementation program. Further, the correlation results among the barriers will provide insights in mitigating the hurdles of lean manufacturing (LM) implementation in the industries.

This study empirically develops a model through the IRP for the barriers in LM implementation. From the reported literature, it appears that the application of IRP is very rare in ceramic industries in India. The analysis and prioritization of LI barriers may help practitioners to plan strategies to implement lean in a selected domain.