Search results

This paper primarily aims to address the following research question: Are techniques and practices developed for uninterrupted, for‐profit supply chains adaptable to the not‐for‐profit (NFP), interrupted context? In other words, can the managerial tools of business logistics be used in humanitarian relief logistics?

A combination of grounded research and case‐based research methods is used. Grounded research methods involve coding interview data to enable constant comparison of the data with emerging categories. Three managerial representatives of a single case organisation, the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), are interviewed.

MCC is a small NFP organisation operating in interrupted environments. As a matter of strategy, it pursues economic and social objectives. Strategic partnerships with “like‐minded” organisations are critical to achieve these objectives. To assess its achievements, MCC needs a wide range of performance measures.

Since the paper is based on a single case, it is difficult to generalise the results beyond MCC, a small, faith‐based NFP providing humanitarian assistance. There are future research opportunities to study more cases and search for additional themes.

Partnerships and performance measurement are important elements of supply chain management (SCM) in humanitarian relief, characterised by NFP operations in interrupted environments. SCM tools and techniques created in the for‐profit or business context, for partnership formation (e.g. “how to commit”) and performance measurement (e.g. balanced scorecard), should be adapted for the humanitarian context.

There is a growing literature on supply chain interruptions, but very little research on NFP sector supply chains, despite pressing needs for effective SCM within the NFP context. Also, there are relatively few studies on adapting business logistics practices for the humanitarian logistics context. The paper addresses these issues.

The purpose of this paper is to review the literature to describe the current practices and research trends in managing supply chains in crisis. This paper also provides directions for future research in supply chain crisis management.

Articles published prior to August 2008 are analyzed and classified.

A unique five‐dimensional framework to classify the literature is provided. The study reveals that there has been extensive research done in this area in recent years. Much of the research is focused on proactive approaches to crisis in supply chains. Management during various internal crises such as supplier bankruptcy or loss of key clients is a new, challenging area that requires further investigation.

This paper does not include articles that are not peer‐reviewed.

This paper will serve as a guide to supply chain managers who would like to know how crises, disasters, and disruptions in supply chains have been handled in existing academic literature.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first literature review in the area of managing supply chains during crisis that looks at both SCM and operations research/management science journals. This paper identifies the various methods that have been used to handle crisis situations and provides a framework to classify the literature. Additionally, this paper identifies gaps in the literature that can provide ideas for future research in this area.

In this case, students assume the roles of FK Day and Dave Neiswander, leaders of the social enterprise World Bicycle Relief (WBR), which donates and sells bicycles in sub-Saharan Africa. As a social enterprise, WBR combines not-for-profit and for-profit activities. Starting as a traditional not-for-profit organization formed to donate bicycles after the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, WBR eventually added a for-profit arm to facilitate growth and reduce its dependence on donations and grants. As a result, by 2017 WBR had distributed around 400,000 bicycles, primarily to schoolgirls, entrepreneurs, and health workers. As the organization grows, its leaders are interested in optimizing operations and entering new countries in Africa. What is the optimal distribution of WBR's resources between its for-profit and not-for-profit operations? How should it define the objective of its operations: should WBR maximize its social impact or the total number of bicycles in the field? Which countries should it enter?

To answer those questions, students are required to analyze the social enterprise business model. This analysis starts at the strategic level and ties into the operational level. If desired, this analysis can be followed by an Excel optimization of WBR's operations. The case contains historical data on the organization and poses questions that can be analyzed from the perspectives of a number of academic fields. It can be used in various types of courses including strategy, not-for-profit organizations, operations, and finance. The instructor materials include a prepared Excel model that can be used to make the quantitative analysis accessible to students without quantitative backgrounds, videos from WBR, and a video that shows FK Day and Dave Neiswander answering questions in the inaugural use of the case at Kellogg.

The purpose of this paper is to gather the current definitions of supply chain management in practical and analytical usage, to develop standards for assessing definitions and to apply these standards to the most readily available definitions of the term.

In this research, the authors gathered the current definitions of supply chain management in practical and analytical usage from journals, textbooks, universities, and industry associations and online.

The research ends with proposed definitions for consideration. Discussion and areas for future research are included.

Involved organizations, supply chain management programs in higher education, and professional and certifying organizations in the field need to meet and work together to research consensus on the final definition of the field, realizing that definitions can evolve, but also recognizing that a starting point is needed in this rapidly growing area.

The authors argue, quite simply, that a consensus definition of supply chain management is unlikely as long as we continue offering and accepting definitions that are technically unsound. Many of the current definitions violate several principles of good definitions. For these reasons, they are either empty, too restrictive, or too expansive. Until we come across or develop a definition that overcomes these limitations and agree on it, then we will still search for “the” definition without finding it. The field will become more crowded with definitions, but less certain, and progress will be restricted.

Theoreticians, researchers, and practitioners in a discipline require key terms in a field to share a nominal definition and prefer to have a shared real or essential definition. Yet in supply chain management, we find no such shared definition, real or nominal. Even the Council of Supply Chain Management Professional offers its definition with the caveat: “The supply chain management (SCM) profession has continued to change and evolve to fit the needs of the growing global supply chain. With the supply chain covering a broad range of disciplines, the definition of what is a supply chain can be unclear” (CSCMP, 2016).

This paper responds to the need for more construction project management research in the emerging field of social procurement. It contributes by exploring the potential value of cross-sector collaboration and project-based intermediation in meeting new social procurement imperatives.

A thematic exploratory case study analysis is presented of seventy-three interviews undertaken with stakeholders involved in a unique project-based intermediary developed by a major Australian construction company to leverage the power of cross-sector collaboration in response to social procurement imperatives on its projects, based on semi-structured interviews with 33 disadvantaged job seekers, 40 organisational stakeholders (employment agencies; not-for-profits, Indigenous, disability and refugee support organisations; training organisations; subcontractors; government agencies and departments; community organisations) and observational and documentary data over the duration of a unique project-based intermediary called a Connectivity Centre, developed by a major Australian contractor to deliver on its emerging social procurement requirements.

The results show that cross-sector collaboration within the construction industry can produce highlight numerous cognitive, behavioural, health, situational and affective social impacts for the project community and shared-value benefits for the range of organisations involved. However, it is found that cross-sector collaboration through project-based intermediation in a construction context is challenging due to the fragmented and dynamic nature of construction project teams and the communities they have to engage with. Encouraging people and organisations to collaborate who operate in industries and organisations with different and sometimes competing institutional logics and objectives (even if they are linked by common values) requires a set of knowledge, competencies and relationships not recognised in current global project management competency frameworks.

This research contributes new insights to the emerging but embryonic body of research into construction social procurement by demonstrating the value of emerging theories of social procurement, social value, cross-sector collaboration and intermediation in enhancing our currently limited understanding of the complex challenges involved in responding to new social procurement requirements in the construction industry. It explores and documents the potential value of project-based intermediaries in developing and managing the new cross-sector relationships, roles, relational competencies and practices, which are required to effectively respond to and measure the impact of emerging social procurement policies in the construction industry. These findings have a potentially significant social impact by providing new insights for policymakers and the construction industry, to optimise the industry’s response to emerging social procurement policies.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an analytical model to decide between cash-based and in-kind distributions during emergency responses considering the needs of beneficiaries and market conditions. To allow the switch between modalities, a preparedness framework for humanitarian organizations (HOs) is provided.

A mathematical model is proposed to help humanitarian responders make quantitative decisions on the type of programs to implement in emergency responses. The model was applied to a field response by an international HO during the COVID-19 emergency in Colombia.

Cash-based and in-kind distributions are not mutually exclusive response modalities during emergencies, and the real needs of beneficiaries and market effects should be included in the modality selection decision to improve program effectiveness.

The research is focused on short-term immediate response to emergencies; the proposed model assumes favorable market conditions and limits the aid options to direct in-kind and multipurpose cash assistance, excluding other types of cash transfers.

The research outlines practical preconditions to operationalize switching between programs during an emergency. The study provides evidence that HOs should consider dynamics decision tools to select aid modalities and evaluate their response depending on market conditions.

Considering aid modality as a dynamic decision and including the needs from beneficiaries in the choice can have profound impact in the dignifying of humanitarian response to emergencies.

The quantitative model to decide between aid modalities is a novel approach to include beneficiaries' needs and market dynamics into humanitarian supply chain research. The preparedness framework closes the gap between the emergency preparedness literature and the operational constraints that organizations face for fast program implementation.

The purpose of this paper is to advance thought and practice on supply chain relationship building, in the context of humanitarian logistics, drawing on lessons from leading practitioners.

The presentations were treated like data, enabling grounded research concerning practitioners. The presentations were recorded, transcribed, vetted, and imported into qualitative software (NVivo8) to facilitate further analysis, which led to testable propositions.

Three themes emerged, centered around relationship benefits, challenges, and advice on relationship building. Advice from the practitioners led to 11 propositions.

While the presentations were treated as interview data, there was no opportunity to probe statements made by the speakers. Also, speakers were the sole representatives for their organizations. Finally, the findings cannot be generalized beyond the types of situations and organizations represented at the conference.

The propositions represent advice from experienced humanitarian practitioners on building supply chain relationships.

Supply chains are economic entities. They are also social entities. Humanitarian supply chains involve people working together to help other people in need.

There are few published articles on supply chain relationship building, and only several pieces on humanitarian partnerships or relationships. This paper contributes to the literature in a novel way, by drawing on expert speakers at a humanitarian conference.

In a quest to meet increasing pressure to incorporate environmental and sustainability factors due to the legislations and growing public awareness, companies are rethinking of strategizing their supply chain network to take control of the reverse flow of products as well. This growing interest has also led to tremendous growth in publications occurring in several reputed journals in the last few years. In this context, the purpose of this article is to perform a systematic literature survey of recent and state-of-the-art papers in order to draw insights and highlight the future directions.

This paper has selected and reviewed 204 papers published from the year 2002–2017. The papers were collected from the web of science and Google scholar database which have the DOI number. The selected papers were then categorized into main five core areas of RSC management namely reverse supply chain (RSC), Reverse Logistics (RL), Remanufacturing, Closed-Loop Supply Chain (CLSC) and Product Recovery Systems (PRS) and then analyzed with great detail. Finally, the research gaps that were identified from the study have been highlighted for future research opportunities.

This paper would serve as a roadmap to the managers who wish to align their forward and reverse supply chains for overall growth and development. It provides an in-depth knowledge on RSC to the researchers working in this domain. The scholars would be able to identify the areas of RSC which have been already addressed and the areas which remain unaddressed.

This paper presents a systematic literature survey of state-of-the-art papers that was published in the reputed journal in the area of RSC. Total 204 numbers of papers which were published in the reputed journals between 2002 and 2017 are reviewed, categorized and analysed to draw the opportunities and future research direction in the area of RSC.

This “thought paper” is written by the special issue editors as a part of the five papers accepted and published in response to the special issue call for papers on logistics and SCM in the context of relief for refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the Journal of Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Management. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the special issue on “refugee logistics” and analyse the nature and challenges of displacement from a displaced person’s perspective. The paper also argues for a more critical appreciation of the role and value that research in logistics, operations and supply chain management (LOSCM) can play in the delivery of services and care for refugees and IDPs from the perspective of preparedness and logistics planning of humanitarian organisations. The paper further outlines basic challenges to undertaking innovative, boundary pushing valuable and impactful research on “refugee logistics” given the difficult ideological, political and policy context in which “refugee logistics research” will be undertaken. The paper also advocates for more critical research in humanitarian logistics (HL), that explicitly acknowledges its ontological, epistemological and methodological limitations even when ethically sound. The paper concludes by suggesting a future research agenda for this new sub-field of humanitarian logistics research.

Conceptual paper utilising viewpoints, literature reviews as well as original ideas and thoughts of the authors.

The new field of “refugee logistics research” is important. It has been neglected in humanitarian logistics research for too long. Hence, there needs to be more research in this sub-field of humanitarian logistics.

This is a “thought paper”. It is the basic conceptual ideas of the authors. While it is not based on empirical work or data collection, it is based on a comprehensive literature research and analysis.

This paper advocates for the universal human rights of IDPs and refugees and their dignity, and how LOSCM can contribute to upholding such dignity.

It contributes indirectly to logistics policy and refugee policy as well as logistics service quality and advocacy for human rights and human dignity.

This paper aims to identify the state of the art of performance measurement and management in humanitarian supply chains; to categorize performance measurement indicators in the five supply chain phases of Gunasekaran and Kobu (2007) and evaluate them based on the evaluation criteria of Caplice and Sheffi (1995); and to define gaps and challenges in this field and give insights for future research in this domain.

A literature review has been conducted using a structured method based on Denyer and Tranfield (2009) and Rousseau et al. (2008). The state of the art on humanitarian supply chain performance management with a focus on measurement frameworks and indicators and their applications in practice is classified in three categories. The first category is the definition and measurement of success in humanitarian supply chains. The second category is managing performance, which focuses on describing and analyzing the actual practice of managing performance. The third category shows the challenges in performance management that humanitarian supply chain actors deal with.

Findings reveal that performance measurement and management in humanitarian supply chains is still an open area of research, especially compared to the commercial supply chain sector. Furthermore, the research indicates that performance measurement and management in humanitarian supply chains has to be developed in support of the supply chain strategy. Based on the findings of the literature review on performance measurement and management in the commercial and humanitarian field, a first classification of 94 performance measurement indicators in humanitarian supply chains is presented. Furthermore, the paper shows key problems why performance measurement and management systems have not been widely developed and systematically implemented in humanitarian supply chains and are not part of the supply chain strategy. The authors propose performance measurement guidelines that include input and output criteria. They develop a research agenda that focuses on four research questions for designing, deploying and disseminating performance measurement and management in humanitarian supply chains.

The result helps the humanitarian supply chain community to conduct further research in this area and to develop performance measurement frameworks and indicators that suit humanitarian supply chains.

It is the first systematic approach to categorize research output regarding performance measurement and management in humanitarian supply chains. The paper shows the state of the art in performance measurement and management in humanitarian supply chains and develops a research agenda.