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The aim of this paper is to present current trends and developments in humanitarian logistics (HL) practice, research, and education, and analyze the gaps between these. The article serves as an update on previous literature reviews in HL.

The paper is primarily conceptual and develops a framework for analyzing trends and gaps between HL research, education, and practice. Data are compiled through keyword searches, publicly available bibliographies, and web sites of educational institutions, as well as drawing on material from practitioner workshops, tutorials, conference presentations, and personal communication with practitioners and educators.

Gaps are revealed in HL practice, research, education, as well as between these. Few education programs to date consider the skill needs of humanitarian logisticians, but future trends in practice and research can be used to develop them further. More empirical and practice‐near research is called for at the same time as there is a need for comparative analyses, generic models, and theory building in HL.

Any attempt to grasp current trends in a field is delimited by a lack of overview of the activities of an abundance of HL and fragmented research communities. The article advocates a broader view and openness across organizations and disciplines.

The gap analysis indicates not only trends but also gaps in HL practice and highlights the need to consider new societal pressures such as climate change and urbanization.

HL is concerned with serving beneficiaries; thus, their welfare is at the core of the discipline.

Several articles have reviewed HL research before, but gaps between practice, research, and education have not yet been addressed.

The purpose of this paper is to identify how coordination has evolved in humanitarian logistics (HL), what were the triggers for change and how have they been facilitated.

This paper applies a systematic literature review of academic journals.

This is the first paper to discuss the concepts of network orchestration and choreography in a humanitarian context. The research revealed that network coordination has moved on in the commercial sector to include orchestration and now, choreography concepts which have not been tested in HL literature. This reveals a lag exists between HL research and practice.

This paper represents an exploratory study and provides the basis for further research on the concepts of orchestration and choreography in HL. The paper sets a research agenda for academics.

This paper is the first to discuss the concepts of network orchestration and choreography in a humanitarian context.

The areas of orchestration and choreography have received limited consideration within the humanitarian aid logistics literature to date. This paper is designed to redress this shortfall. As a result, it is hoped that it will act as a catalyst for further research and to widen and deepen the resultant debate with a view to improving the outcome for those affected by current and future disasters.

Service development and outsourcing are growing trends in humanitarian logistics (HL). Humanitarian organizations (HOs) have developed specialized units to perform logistics activities on behalf of other aid organizations, as a commercial logistics service provider (LSP) would do. The purpose of this paper is to explore the characteristics of HOs acting as LSPs and the differences with their commercial counterparts.

This research uses a two-level content analysis of 149 annual reports from 50 local and international HOs, performed with the help of qualitative data analysis software. First, a manifest content analysis identified the number of occurrences of logistics-related words and later, a latent content analysis studies the use in context of such words to characterize the nature of HOs as LSPs.

Evidence shows that some international HOs – in some cases through specialized logistics units – perform the same activities as commercial LSPs, providing similar services. However, due to the characteristics of the humanitarian context, HOs acting as LSPs can offer a wider range of value-added and dedicated services to clients (other HOs) than commercial LSPs.

Exploring the activities performed by HOs on behalf of other aid organizations and characterizing them as service providers constitutes a first attempt to grasp the unique features of these particular humanitarian LSPs. The results open the discussion about the services HOs offer, thus contributing to theory development in HL.

The identification of HOs acting as LSPs introduces a new actor to the humanitarian network, which the authors refer to as humanitarian service provider (HSP). This supposes two main managerial implications. First, the results support the idea of seeing servitization as a competitive difference, having a substantial impact on the way HOs build their strategies and achieve competitive advantage. Second, HSPs can push their commercial equivalents to identify new activities or services to offer and maintain their competitive advantage with regard to the newcomers.

This paper furthers the discussion on the concept of HSPs and demonstrates its uniqueness, thus contributing to the ever-growing body of knowledge of HL research.

Whilst implementation of a broad range of reverse logistics (RL) practices is increasingly the norm within commercial supply chain management, they have had limited impact in the humanitarian logistics (HL) sector. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the challenges and opportunities for the application of RL in a HL context.

Through a broad review of both the academic and practitioner literature, supplemented by informal discussions with senior humanitarian logisticians, the paper summarises the current state of RL within the HL sector before recommending ways in which practices that are increasingly found in a commercial context could be implemented.

The findings indicate that, to date, the use of commercial RL practices is extremely limited within the HL sector, but there are a number of areas where their introduction be possible in the future.

Whilst the reviews of the literature were comprehensive, further and more detailed research into the RL practices (if any) undertaken by aid agencies needs to be undertaken in order that appropriate lessons and experiences can be implemented across the sector as a whole.

Given the overall desire of humanitarian agencies to “do no harm” it will be increasingly important for such organisations to embrace RL practices in order to improve the sustainability of their disaster preparation and response activities.

In light of the generally increased awareness of the need to reduce the environmental footprint as well as improving the social and economic impacts of their supply chain activities, there is likely to be increasing pressure on aid agencies to adopt RL practices. This paper identifies some of the potential areas in which this can be undertaken, and the associated barriers to be overcome.

To date, it would appear that no academic research has been undertaken into the RL practices within the HL sector. To this extent, the research represents a first look at a new sub-topic within the overall HL field.

The purpose of this paper is to present a literature review and conceptual consideration of servitization in humanitarian logistics (HL) and provide a research agenda for HL scholars and insight for practitioners and by doing so will fill a gap in existing research and practice.

The paper uses a literature-based approach that extends concepts usually applied in a commercial context to the area of HL.

The paper initiates a discourse on the importance of taking into account servitization in developing and managing effective emergency relief chains. This paper argues that a broader servitization paradigm needs to be integrated for international humanitarian organisations (IHOs) to maintain a competitive advantage.

The authors investigate servitization as a management innovation in IHOs and plot a research agenda for scholars.

The purpose of this paper is to compare perspectives on humanitarian logistics (HL) and supply chain management (SCM) among programmes and logistics/support staff.

Underpinned by services supply chain management (SSCM) theory, a single case study of a leading international non-governmental organisation is presented based on a web-based survey of the organisation’s global operations staff, supplemented by semi-structured interviews conducted with senior representatives.

The study is believed to be the first to consider the different perspectives of programmes and logistics staff on the interpretation of logistics and SCM. The results indicate both significant divergence between the views of these two cohorts, as well as a general lack of clarity over the concept of SCM, its relationship with logistics and the cross-functional nature of SCM.

Insufficient responses from programme staff limit the generalisability of the findings. Suggestions for future research include further examination of the potential of applying SSCM and demand chain management concepts to the humanitarian context.

The results support the notion that a broader, more strategic interpretation of SCM, more clearly distinguished from the practice of HL, may assist in breaking down perceived jurisdictional boundaries, bridging the gap between programmes and logistics teams, and strengthening demand-chain influences and the “voice of the beneficiary”.

By taking into account the views of non-logisticians, a broader, cross-functional interpretation of SCM is offered leading to revised definitions for both SCM and HL within this sector, together with a framework that integrates SCM across humanitarian relief and development contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to present a literature review of humanitarian logistics (HL) that aims to identify trends and suggest some directions for future research.

This conceptual paper develops a research framework for literature review through qualitative and quantitative content analysis. First, previous literature reviews in HL are updated and detailed. Then, seven classification criteria are added to earlier ones in order to advance the literature analysis.

The conclusions identify some literature gaps and research opportunities. The main conclusions are the need for more studies into the disaster recovery phase and the need for closer relationships between academia and humanitarian organizations to increase the number of applied research.

The literature is limited to academic peer-reviewed journals because of their academic relevance, accessibility, and ease of searching.

Help potential researchers to set up a research agenda for future work.

Reinforce earlier calls to increase truly applied research and improve social impact of the field.

In total, 228 papers that were published in the HL area are reviewed, giving rise to the most extensive literature review in this area. New dimensions for literature review in HL are proposed, which give some new insights into potential research directions.

As humanitarian logistics (HL) functions in complicated, changing and ambiguous situations, all people, particularly the educated youth, have to know how to control the situation and assist victims, which are best achieved through formal education and training. Teaching at university has been extensively used in the context of business logistics. However, education in HL is a poorly researched field and, consequently, this article explores education for sustainable development in HL. The study addresses the following research question: How the teaching of HL at university can help to increase HL performance (HLP) and to reduce suffering.

A covariance-based structure equation modeling (CB-SEM) is implemented on the basis of confirmatory factor analysis.

The results show that the association between the explanatory variables and the dependent variable (HLP) is mediated by sustainability, and that the teaching of HL at university plays a vital role in enhancing HLP and is therefore a very suitable approach for sustainable development in HL. This direct approach is creative, informative and productive practice for both students and teachers.

In spite of the growing number of activities and courses in supply chain and logistics education, no study, to the best of our knowledge, has empirically analyzed the critical topic of whether or not education can bring sustainable development in HL. In order to save lives and reduce the suffering of victims, this study attempts to fill this gap.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a performance measurement framework that takes into account the key stakeholders of the logistics departments or personnel in humanitarian organisations. It reflects their views and characteristics by adapting the balanced scorecard (BSC) to this environment. The key stakeholders are identified using the stakeholder salience framework by Mitchell et al. (1997).

This is a conceptual paper based on a systematic literature review on stakeholders, customers and performance measurement in humanitarian supply chains.

Beneficiaries are the customers that are the reason for the existence of humanitarian supply chains. Donors are the stakeholder group with the highest salience due to the greatest amount of power. Both groups have their own interests, creating a challenging environment for performance measurement. Standard business tools such as the BSC have to be adapted accordingly to be useful in this environment.

This paper is conceptual and the proposed framework is yet to be tested empirically.

The proposed framework can help humanitarian organisations focus on the aspects of performance that are most relevant to their key customer groups.

The research brings together the complexities of humanitarian supply chains with the increasing customer focus that can be seen in commercial service supply chains. Based on an assessment of stakeholder salience, the difference in key customer groups is analysed. The resulting framework provides indications for balancing their diverging needs.

The purpose of this paper is to link humanitarian logistics (HL) and supply chain risk management (SCRM) to provide an understanding of risk mitigation strategies that humanitarian organisations use, or could use, to improve their logistics preparedness.

Based on systematic reviews of RMS in SCRM and supply chain strategies (SCS) in HL literature, a framework is developed and used to review published case studies in HL.

The study finds that humanitarian actors use a number of the strategies proposed in the framework, particularly those related to strategic stocks, postponement, and collaboration. Strategies related to sourcing and procurement, however, especially those on supplier relationships, seem to be lacking in both research and practice.

The study is based on secondary data and could be further developed through case studies based on primary data. Future studies should explore the generalisability of the findings.

Practitioners can use the framework to identify potential new SCS and how strategies can be combined. Findings can help them to understand the abnormal risks of main concern, how they may impact normal risks, and provide ideas on how to tackle trade-offs between different risks.

The results can support improvements in humanitarian supply chains, which will provide affected people with rapid, cost-efficient, and better-adapted responses.

The paper connects SCRM and HL to develop a framework and suggests propositions on how humanitarian actors can mitigate supply chain risks. Questioning the focus on strategic stock it suggests complementary or alternative strategies for improving logistics preparedness.