Internal Publication
Assessing the value of supply chain management in the humanitarian context – An evidence-based research approach
The research objective is to study the relevance of supply chain management in the humanitarian context, analyze supply chain expenditures and identify major cost-saving potentials and future research directions.
Design/methodology/approach
Our research design integrates exploratory and inductive research approaches that are based on existing literature, discussions with supply chain leaders and extensive financial data collected through field studies.
Findings
Supply chain management is increasingly considered as a critical success factor for humanitarian operations and amounts on average to around 75% of the total response cost. Based on our findings, humanitarian supply chains bear tremendous potential for further improvements to provide more assistance with limited resources available.
Research limitations/implications
In particular, humanitarian supply chains in conflict situations and procurement processes offer potential for impactful and relevant research. Whilst our study focuses on international organizations, future research should give more attention to supply chain cost structures of local actors to reveal further untapped potential.
Practical implications
Our findings equipped supply chain leaders with fact-based evidence of the value of supply chain management and supported them in strategic meetings with their executive management and donors. Furthermore, we identified major cost-saving potentials.
Social implications
For researchers (and practitioners), our findings serve as motivation to intensify their efforts in studying and enhancing supply chain management in the humanitarian context.
Originality/value
This paper fulfils an identified need to study and provide empirical evidence of the value of supply chain management in the humanitarian context.
Author: Stumpf, Jonas | ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7941-6564
Co-author: Wakolbinger, Tina | ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5042-4870
Co-author: Besiou, Maria | ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6401-2738
Institution: Kühne Logistics University | Centre: Sustainable Operations for Resource Management and Food Supply (SCO)
Type: Journal article | English
Subjects: Logistics
Published in: Journal of Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Management, ISSN: 2042-6747
Publisher of document: Emerald Publishing Limited
Date: 6 December 2022
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/jhlscm-03-2022-0039/full/html
Copyright: Jonas Stumpf, Maria Besiou, and Tina Wakolbinger
