Maria Besiou

Prof. Dr. Maria Besiou is Professor of Humanitarian Logistics and Academic Director of the Center for Humanitarian Logistics and Regional Development (CHORD) at Kühne Logistics University. She received her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and Operations Management from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH) in Greece. She holds a Diploma in Mechanical Engineering from AUTH. Before joining KLU she worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Social Innovation Centre at INSEAD, France.Professor Besiou’s specialization is on the field of sustainable supply chain management. Her main research interests are in humanitarian logistics, closed-loop supply chains and stakeholder media. She studies dynamic complex systems, characterized by multiple actors and feedbacks, in a strategic level rendering system dynamics methodology an appropriate tool. Her research focuses on the decision-making of commercial companies and humanitarian organizations, while managing their supply chains. It has been motivated by real problems that these supply chains face such as regulations, limitation of resources, stochasticity, decentralization and monitoring by online communities. Hence, the insights that arise from her research can be transferred to policy-makers and decision-makers dealing with supply chain issues.As a researcher, she is currently involved in the Research Institute on Leadership and Operations in Humanitarian Aid (RILOHA), which seeks to enhance the effectiveness of humanitarian aid via psychological insights, and serves as the Academic Director of the Center of Humanitarian Logistics and Regional Development (CHORD), which aims to bring together the best of two worlds by combining top-class academic research and education with operational training and consulting excellence. Her research appears in several case studies, award-winning papers and peer-review international journals like Production and Operations Management (POM), Journal of Operations Management (JOM), Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (MSOM), California Management Review (CMR), and the European Journal of Operational Research (EJOR). Besiou serves as an Associate Editor in Decision Sciences Journal and the Journal of Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Management (JHLSCM), as a Senior Editor of the Disaster Management Department (DMD) of Production and Operations Management (POM), and on the editorial review boards of Journal of Operations Management (JOM) and Production and Operations Management (POM). Google Scholar LinkedIn

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Current professional activity

• Professor of Humanitarian Logistics – Kühne Logistics University
• Director of the Center of Humanitarian Logistics and Regional Development (CHORD) – Kühne Logistics University
• Principal Investigator of the Center of Sustainable Operations for Resource Management and Food Supply (SCO) –

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Skills and Interests in Keywords

Publications

Humanitarian operations and the UN sustainable development goals

During emergencies humanitarian supply chains need to respond swiftly, very often without time for good planning that may end up in excessive waste and emissions. This short‐term focus on saving people's lives during disaster responses may harm communities and the...

Orchestrating coordination among humanitarian organizations

Disasters mobilize hundreds of organizations, but coordination among them remains a challenge. This is why the United Nations has formed clusters to facilitate information and resource exchange among humanitarian organizations. Yet, coordination failures in prior disasters raise questions as to...

Measuring and Fostering Supply Chain Resilience in the Humanitarian Context

The severe impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has brought the consequences of supply chain disruptions into our everyday life. Organizations operating in the humanitarian space are confronted with supply chain risks in the majority of their programs. Building and strengthening...

Aid worker adaptability in humanitarian operations: Interplay of prosocial motivation and authoritarian leadership

Many field office leaders contend that authoritarian leadership improves the performance of humanitarian operations. The common narrative is that authoritarian leadership helps aid workers more quickly adapt to changes and thus deliver better job performance (e.g., by improving operations in...

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...

Creating Pathways to Impact: Investing in Supply Chain and Logistics Capacity Development in Africa

African logistics and supply chain management capabilities are essential to the performance of the continent's commercial and humanitarian supply chains (SCs). This article reviewed the challenges for researchers and practitioners in advancing logistics and SC performance through developing appropriate capabilities....

Impact of pandemics on humanitarian retailing operations: A voucher’s case

In 2020, the world started a fight against a pandemic that has severely disrupted commercial and humanitarian supply chains. Humanitarian organizations (HOs), like the World Food Programme (WFP), adjusted their programs in order to manage this pandemic. One such program...

Data, analytical techniques and collaboration between researchers and practitioners in humanitarian health supply chains: a challenging but necessary way forward

This paper aims to provide a discussion on the interface and interactions between data, analytical techniques and impactful research in humanitarian health supply chains. New techniques for data capturing, processing and analytics, such as big data, blockchain technology and artificial...

Supply chain preparedness: How operational settings, product and disaster characteristics affect humanitarian responses

Supply chains are dynamic and complex systems. This holds particularly true for humanitarian supply chains that operate under strong uncertainty. In view of an ever‐growing gap of unmet humanitarian needs, it is essential to gain a better understanding of the...

Diversity and Inclusion Under Pressure: Building Relational Resilience into Humanitarian Operations

In this essay, our analysis takes important insights on diversity and inclusion from the behavioral literature but critically contextualizes them against the reality of humanitarian operations. Humanitarian operations are characterized by system immanent diversity, particularly between local and expatriate aid...