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The purpose of this paper is to develop a method for diagramming a base camp or space for emergency workers and a staging area to be used during sorting, storing, loading, and unloading of relief goods in a humanitarian logistics base airport.

A method is developed based on a synthesis of the relevant literature and current practices of airports. This provides a means for estimating the area required for each facility and visualizes the layout of the base through an adjacency diagram and a bubble diagram. The method is applied to the Shizuoka Airport in Japan as a case study.

The proposed method can be used to determine the approximate size and layout of a humanitarian logistics base in an airport based on the affected population and the number of emergency workers.

Airport operation regulations and mathematical models from architectural planning need to be reflected further.

The method provides potential operational improvements for policies and standards for airport operations and enables government officials and humanitarian logistics organizations to identify concerns in facilitating and managing constraints in existing airports.

This study addresses the detailed phases in a diagramming for a humanitarian logistics base airport by integrating an architectural approach and airport disaster management. The results highlight the importance of managing the flexible use of space to improve effective humanitarian logistics.

Aiming to resolve cross-cultural paradoxes in combining artificial intelligence (AI) with human intelligence (HI) for international humanitarian logistics, this paper aims to adopt an unorthodox Yin–Yang dialectic approach to address how AI–HI interactions can be interpreted as a sophisticated cross-cultural knowledge creation (KC) system that enables more effective decision-making for providing humanitarian relief across borders.

This paper is conceptual and pragmatic in nature, whereas its structure design follows the requirements of a real impact study.

Based on experimental information and logical reasoning, the authors first identify three critical cross-cultural challenges in AI–HI collaboration: paradoxes of building a cross-cultural KC system, paradoxes of integrative AI and HI in moral judgement and paradoxes of processing moral-related information with emotions in AI–HI collaboration. Then applying the Yin–Yang dialectic to interpret Klir’s epistemological frame (1993), the authors propose an unconventional stratified system of cross-cultural KC for understanding integrative AI–HI decision-making for humanitarian logistics across cultures.

This paper aids not only in deeply understanding complex issues stemming from human emotions and cultural cognitions in the context of cross-border humanitarian logistics, but also equips culturally-diverse stakeholders to effectively navigate these challenges and their potential ramifications. It enhances the decision-making process and optimizes the synergy between AI and HI for cross-cultural humanitarian logistics.

The originality lies in the use of a cognitive methodology of the Yin–Yang dialectic to metaphorize the dynamic genesis of integrative AI-HI KC for international humanitarian logistics. Based on system science and knowledge management, this paper applies game theory, multi-objective optimization and Markov decision process to operationalize the conceptual framework in the context of cross-cultural humanitarian logistics.

Governance is the key to establishing effective collaboration among humanitarian logistics partners addressing an ongoing relief work. With a focus on humanitarian interorganizational collaboration, this research draws on governance theories to investigate how conflicts can be mitigated in this challenging setting.

The focus on governance extends attention to the frontiers of contractual agreement, trust and environmental uncertainty to be applied in the humanitarian setting. To develop perspectives, an online survey of 289 field executives working in humanitarian organizations across the globe is conducted. The findings are based on hierarchical regressions.

Environmental uncertainty, in humanitarian logistics, is not straightforward, but wields distinctive challenges in the response phase (immediate to the disaster) as well as the recovery phase (beginning of build back) – to loom prospects of conflict between partners. Findings outline that contractual agreement can increase conflict during the response phase (high environmental uncertainty), but mitigate it during the recovery phase (low environmental uncertainty). Furthermore, contractual agreement interactively strengthens the ability of trust to reduce conflict. Yet, trust acting alone shows best outcome to mitigate conflict.

Contrary to the established understanding in traditional logistics suggesting the vitality of contracts to easily mitigate challenges posed by environmental uncertainty, the humanitarian setting extends a unique outset for interorganizational governance based on the temporality of response and recovery phases.

This research pioneers to quantitatively examine the setting of humanitarian logistics based on survey. Given the difficulty of data acquisition, the extant research has largely relied on qualitative investigations when considering the agenda of governance.

The purpose of this paper is to review the relevant literature in order to identify trends and suggest some possible directions for future research in the framework of humanitarian aid distribution logistics with accessibility constraints.

The authors developed a systematic literature review to study the state of the art on distribution logistics considering accessibility constraints. The electronic databases used were Web of science, Scopus, Science Direct, Jstor, Emerald, EBSCO, Scielo and Redalyc. As a result, 49 articles were reviewed in detail.

This study identified some gaps, as well as some research opportunities. The main conclusions are the need for further studies on the interrelationships and hierarchies of multiple actors, explore intermodality, transshipment options and redistribution relief goods to avoid severe shortages in some nodes and excess inventory in others, studies of the vulnerability of transport networks, correlational analysis of road failures and other future lines.

The bibliography is limited to peer-reviewed academic journals due to their academic relevance, accessibility and ease of searching. Most of the studies included in the review were conducted in high-income countries, which may limit the generalizability of the results to low-income countries. However, the authors focused on databases covering important journals on humanitarian logistics.

This paper contextualises and synthesises research into humanitarian aid distribution logistics with accessibility constrains, highlights key themes and suggests areas for further research.

The paper is focused on standards in humanitarian logistics and supply chain. Standards, implemented between organisations, allow improving the interoperability of humanitarian operations. The paper aims (1) to review a state-of-the-art approach to the topic by the academic community, (2) to evaluate the current use of standards among humanitarian organisations and (3) to investigate the perceived need for further and specific standards.

To achieve the aims, the literature was reviewed; then a survey on 227 professionals from the humanitarian logistics sector was conducted.

Based on 227 responses, it is possible to conclude that most surveyed professionals recognise the need for and the importance of standardisation in humanitarian logistics, especially in areas such as procurement, distribution, medical logistics and logistics planning, which were perceived as critical areas that require standardisation.

Practitioners and scholars were targeted via social media, through mailing lists and via communication from the practitioner organisation – the Humanitarian Logistics Association (HLA). While it provided good access to different groups of respondents, the response rate is not possible to calculate.

The findings confirm the high importance of standardisation, indicating areas and functions that should be standardised first. Standardisation may improve cooperation between different humanitarian actors, allowing better service provision for beneficiaries. Thus there are also potential negative impacts, i.e. impact on localisation, which should be overcome.

Results do not have a direct social impact; however, they stimulate research and work among practitioners on standardisation, which in turn could improve cooperation between humanitarian actors, thereby enabling a better humanitarian response in emergencies.

The majority of papers on standardisation use a qualitative approach. This paper applies a survey among a large network of humanitarian practitioners, capturing their view on the topic and perception of the need for standardisation. The work is descriptive; however, it could be used as a base for further studies related to humanitarian standards.

The purpose of the research paper is to provide the humanitarian logistics community with an overall picture about competencies and skills in humanitarian logistics and if there is a lack of professionalization of the logistics function in humanitarian context from an international perspective. Further this research elaborates practical approaches how the skills and competencies can be enhanced and developed for international education programs.

An empirical survey as approach was used. Hereby a descriptive analysis provides in a comprehensive way education, skills and competencies in humanitarian logistics. The respondents are from different countries and continents as well as from different humanitarian sector, e.g. humanitarian organizations (HOs), logistics service providers, military services and researchers.

In general, the findings of the research paper present valuable insights of mandatory contents of education in humanitarian logistics as well as competencies and skills on different levels based on European Qualification Framework (EQF). This research paper explores these and offers suggestions to improve and promote market and professional competencies and skills for the humanitarian logistics sector and to minimize their impacts.

The field survey was due to access and motivation restriction mainly answered by academics in the field of humanitarian logistics or by leadership personnel with very high academic merits (MA/PhD). Further the objective of this research paper was purposefully limited to describing the education requirements, not gap analysis with existing education offers or development of new curricula content – this should be a task for further research setups.

Specific requirements regarding negotiation and legal competences are named in the survey as well as the objective of specific, country-related adaptions and the time schedule form of education trainings in humanitarian logistics (during a professional career with as much time absent for learning as feasible).

The paper highlights the increasing demand and still existing gap regarding education and training in humanitarian logistics in the field. All included institutions and persons have to re-evaluate their prioritization and budgeting in order to support further education and training for personnel in humanitarian logistics according to the results of the survey and addressing the need of logisticians in the humlog management and operations.

This paper adds to the knowledge about the implications of education and training and measurement of skills and competencies based on EQF for theory and practice. Further the humanitarian logistics community requires rudimentary humanitarian logistics education to enhance the logistics operation in case of disaster toward the affected people.

The purpose of this paper is to underline the advantages offered by applying the collective strategy model in the context of humanitarian logistics, enriching the existing benefits that operations management and business logistics techniques have brought to the field. In both man‐made and natural disaster relief, humanitarian logistics operations have been hampered by a lack of coordination between actors, which directly affects performance in terms of reactivity and reliability. Adapted collective strategies could offer a solution to this problem.

A literature review deals with the issue of humanitarian logistics through an operational dimension, followed by a strategic approach. This is rounded out with a case study dealing with the Pisco earthquake in Peru (August 2007), which is based on a participant observation methodological approach.

The research presented in this paper reveals that a collective action approach has a positive impact on the working of humanitarian supply chains, as long as a “hub” is used to provide accountability and reliability. If a technical approach, particularly in matters of operations management (optimization of transportation, location of regional warehouses, etc.) is essential to better manage humanitarian logistics, it must also be in the service of a collective strategy, notably in the pre‐positioning of supplies and the coordination of relief efforts.

There is an emerging body of work on managing logistical operations in a humanitarian context, but less on strategic readings of humanitarian supply chains. In addition, the application of methods from the field of business logistics is possible, but too often underestimated. This work helps to address both gaps.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the value of fourth-party logistics (4PL) services in a humanitarian supply chain. Furthermore, it shows a framework for a fourth-party humanitarian logistics concept.

The research paper presents a framework of fourth-party humanitarian logistics based on the four core components described by Christopher (2005) which was evaluated with a nonlinear approach called analytical hierarchy process (AHP). The AHP method explores qualitative and quantitative decision-making criteria in case of solving multi-attribute and complex problems. In total, seven experts from academia and practice have contributed to this research, resulting in a better understanding of the decisive needs of humanitarian supply chain actors for implementing and integrating a 4PL concept.

The research shows an increased value for humanitarian supply chain actors of establishing a 4PL concept. The results present a positive influence of 4PL in complex disasters environments and provide key drivers for increasing and simplifying collaboration between the humanitarian supply chain actors.

Future research has to consider different disaster types and needs to further emphasize the added value for beneficiaries of implementing a 4PL concept in a humanitarian supply chain environment. Further research should preferably also consider case studies in order to analyse challenges, drawbacks and benefits of this concept (qualitative and quantitative factors) in a real-life humanitarian supply chain setting.

The research offers managerial insights into the use of a 4PL concept in the humanitarian supply chain environment to improve efficiency due to an improved collaboration between the humanitarian supply chain actors.

The research paper investigates an under-researched topic in the humanitarian supply chain environment. For humanitarian supply chain actors outsourcing their activities to a 4PL service provider could secure collaboration, increase service levels as well as efficiency and therefore create additional value.

This paper is based on a panel discussion at EurOMA 2015. The purpose of this paper is to identify a number of barriers to relevant research in humanitarian logistics. The authors propose a charter of ten rules for conducting relevant humanitarian research.

The authors use operations management literature to identify best practices for doing research with practice. The authors compile, condense and interpret opinions expressed by three academics and one practitioner at the panel discussion, and illustrate them through quotes.

The increasing volume of papers published in the humanitarian logistics literature has not led to a proportional impact on practice. The authors identify a number of reasons for this, such as poor problem definition, difficult access to data or lack of contextualization. The authors propose a charter of ten rules that have the potential to make humanitarian logistics research more relevant for practice.

By developing best practices for doing relevant research in humanitarian logistics, this paper enables the academic community and practice to better work together on relevant and impactful research projects. Academic knowledge combined with practice-inspired problems has the potential to generate significant improvements to humanitarian practice.

This paper is the first to address the problem of relevance of humanitarian logistics research. It is also one of the few papers involving a practitioner to discuss practical relevance of research. Through this unique approach, it is hoped that this paper provides a set of particularly helpful recommendations for researchers studying humanitarian logistics.