Dynamic capabilities in humanitarian supply chain management: a systematic literature review

Factors affecting the quality of working life among nurses caring for Syrian refugee camps in Jordan

OBJECTIVES

The global refugee crisis, exacerbated by the Syrian war, has placed tremendous strain on Jordan's healthcare system and infrastructure, notably impacting nurses working in refugee camps. The aim to identify factors influencing nurses' Quality of life at work (QWL) and understand their significance in crisis healthcare environments.

METHODOLOGY

A cross-sectional study was conducted in multiple healthcare facilities within Syrian refugee camps. A convenient sample of 166 nurses participated, and data were collected using the Brook's Quality of Nursing Work Life Survey. Data analysis included descriptive and inferential (one-way ANOVA) statistics. Significance level was set at 0.05.

RESULTS

Nurses in this study generally reported a moderate QWL, with an average score of 152.85, indicating that their overall work experience falls into the moderate range. The study found that nurses perceived their work-life/home-life balance (mean score 25.79), work design (mean score 35.71), work context (mean score 71.37), and work world (mean score 19.96) at levels indicative of moderate satisfaction. There were no statistically significant differences in QWL among participating nurses, suggesting that factors other than demographic characteristics may play a more influential role in determining nurses' QWL in the unique context of refugee caregiving.

CONCLUSION

This study underscores that working within refugee healthcare missions and recommends targeted interventions to enhance their well-being.

Applications of AI in oil and gas projects towards sustainable development: a systematic literature review

Oil and gas construction projects are critical for meeting global demand for fossil fuels, but they also present unique risks and challenges that require innovative construction approaches. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a promising technology for tackling these challenges, and this study examines its applications for sustainable development in the oil and gas industry. Using a systematic literature review (SLR), this research evaluates research trends from 2011 to 2022. It provides a detailed analysis of how AI suits oil and gas construction. A total of 115 research articles were reviewed to identify original contributions, and the findings indicate a positive trend in AI research related to oil and gas construction projects, especially after 2016. The originality of this study lies in its comprehensive analysis of the latest research on AI applications in the oil and gas industry and its contribution to developing recommendations for improving the sustainability of oil and gas projects. This research's originality is in providing insight into the most promising AI applications and methodologies that can help drive sustainable development in the oil and gas industry.

Assessing Effectiveness of Humanitarian Activities against COVID-19 Disruption: The Role of Blockchain-Enabled Digital Humanitarian Network (BT-DHN)

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected more than 214 countries across the world, disrupting the supply of essential commodities. As the pandemic has spread, humanitarian activities (HAs) have attempted to manage the various situation but appear ineffective due to lack of collaboration and information sharing, inability to respond towards disruption, etc. This study aims to determine and provide insights into the critical factors that may enhance the effectiveness of HAs during the pandemic. A systematic literature review was undertaken to explore critical factors and validated by experts using the fuzzy–Delphi method. These were further assessed to identify the cause-and-effect relationship by means of the fuzzy decision-making trial and laboratory (DEMATEL) method. The results show that building a blockchain-enabled digital humanitarian network (BT-DHN) is the most significant factor during the pandemic. The use of digital platforms for sharing real-time information enhances the effectiveness of HAs. This study offers stakeholders, policymakers, and decision-makers the opportunity to consider these factors in strategic planning to deal with pandemic disruption.

Humanitarian actions of a cultural center during the Covid-19 pandemic: an analogy with supply chain business processes

Purpose

This study intends to map the supply chain and characterize the business processes of a cultural center in an aggregated and coordinated operation to serve families in need during the Covid-19 pandemic. This case study analyzes distinct aspects of humanitarian management capable of contributing to the management of commercial supply chains.

Design/methodology/approach

Adopting a case study approach, this research contextualizes the view on humanitarian supply chains related to the importance of participating organizations' engagement and the relationship and similarity with business organizations.

Findings

The study presents the model adopted to undertake the aid operations, maps the cultural center's humanitarian supply chain, clarifies the relationships and operations developed and compares the business processes with those of commercial chains. Possibilities and initiatives are discussed that can contribute to business organizations' greater engagement in humanitarian actions.

Research limitations/implications

Restricted to one case involving the cultural center and the other agents researched, the information and considerations are limited, and any generalization should be treated with caution.

Practical implications

The study is a practical example that clarifies how business organizations can engage in the supply chain of humanitarian institutions. It also illustrates ways to help these institutions improve their fund-raising initiatives.

Social implications

This study is justified by the representativeness of humanitarian actions in critical periods such as the Covid-19 pandemic. The study also presents potential ways to contribute to operations of this nature and to encourage business organizations to improve participation in humanitarian movements.

Originality/value

Many studies on the subject have highlighted the importance of comparing humanitarian and business supply chains through real case research.

Sustainable disaster supply chain management for relief operations in Bangladesh

Purpose

Number of disastrous events are rising globally, and it is important to manage the humanitarian supply chain management process to assist the disaster affected individuals in terms of relief operations. Effective relief operations can help to recover the materialistic loss due to any disaster. But there is a paucity of studies regarding this issue for developing countries. This study, hence, inspected the factors that affect the disaster supply chain management (DSCM) processes for relief operations in Bangladesh.

Design/methodology/approach

This study examined the factors affecting relief operations through a qualitative analysis. This study used thematic analysis. Interviews were conducted with related supply chain individuals who were triangulated by data from related publications and blogs.

Findings

The study showed that sustainable DSCM for relief operations in Bangladesh require addressing few factors as organizational capabilities, warehousing locations and inventory management, infrastructure facility, coordination among partners, government and local authority support to create a transparent, efficient, effective and sustainable DSCM process for relief operations in Bangladesh. The system loopholes can be identified and rectified on the base of these factors.

Research limitations/implications

The number of interview respondents was limited to twenty who were selected randomly from four organizations. To create a sustainable disaster supply chain management (SCM) for relief operations few factors were considered as predominant factors in Bangladesh context to generalize the developing country contexts and other factors were not considered. Therefore, for farther humanitarian research, the model of this study can be used for quantitative research and the hypotheses can be tested empirically to get more acute findings.

Practical implications

As this study identifies the factors which can help to create a sustainable DSCM system for relief operations, hence practically, Bangladesh humanitarian SCM agencies will be beneficial from this study. They can easily recognize the factors need to be considered to create a sustainable DSCM process for relief operations.

Originality/value

This is a unique study carried out to examine the factors affecting DSCM process for relief operations in Bangladesh.

Assessing the role of industry 4.0 for enhancing swift trust and coordination in humanitarian supply chain

Unpredictable natural and man-made disasters highlight importance of humanitarian supply chain (HSC) to serve people and affected areas. The main challenges of applying effective relief operations are creating "swift trust" and "coordination" between aid organizations. Implementation of Industry 4.0 facilitates coordination and swift trust within HSC performance. The study intends to assess the readiness status of swift trust and coordination between stakeholders as well as to recommend the most suitable Industry 4.0 tools for improving relief operations. Firstly, a comprehensive set of critical success factors for implementing Industry 4.0 tools are introduced. The factors are categorized into limited groups using Exploratory Factor Analysis. In the next step, hierarchy fuzzy expert system is designed for assessing the readiness status of swift trust and coordination as well as to suggest the most suitable Industry 4.0 tool for enhancing HSC performance within given case study. The framework was applied for three aid organizations to address the pandemic disease in Iran. The outcome denotes that the organization has the highest readiness in logistic and transparency while information quality received the lowest readiness value. In addition to that, the organization should invest on the development of Industry 4.0 enablers including "Internet of Things and Big Data Analytics". The study extends organizational information process theory within HSC for reaching competitive advantage by information processing. The study suggests theoretical and practical implications by introducing a comprehensive set of critical success factors for implementation of Industry 4.0 and providing practical advice for enhancing HSC performance.

Assessing the role of industry 4.0 for enhancing swift trust and coordination in humanitarian supply chain

Unpredictable natural and man-made disasters highlight importance of humanitarian supply chain (HSC) to serve people and affected areas. The main challenges of applying effective relief operations are creating "swift trust" and "coordination" between aid organizations. Implementation of Industry 4.0 facilitates coordination and swift trust within HSC performance. The study intends to assess the readiness status of swift trust and coordination between stakeholders as well as to recommend the most suitable Industry 4.0 tools for improving relief operations. Firstly, a comprehensive set of critical success factors for implementing Industry 4.0 tools are introduced. The factors are categorized into limited groups using Exploratory Factor Analysis. In the next step, hierarchy fuzzy expert system is designed for assessing the readiness status of swift trust and coordination as well as to suggest the most suitable Industry 4.0 tool for enhancing HSC performance within given case study. The framework was applied for three aid organizations to address the pandemic disease in Iran. The outcome denotes that the organization has the highest readiness in logistic and transparency while information quality received the lowest readiness value. In addition to that, the organization should invest on the development of Industry 4.0 enablers including "Internet of Things and Big Data Analytics". The study extends organizational information process theory within HSC for reaching competitive advantage by information processing. The study suggests theoretical and practical implications by introducing a comprehensive set of critical success factors for implementation of Industry 4.0 and providing practical advice for enhancing HSC performance.

Assessing the role of industry 4.0 for enhancing swift trust and coordination in humanitarian supply chain

Unpredictable natural and man-made disasters highlight importance of humanitarian supply chain (HSC) to serve people and affected areas. The main challenges of applying effective relief operations are creating "swift trust" and "coordination" between aid organizations. Implementation of Industry 4.0 facilitates coordination and swift trust within HSC performance. The study intends to assess the readiness status of swift trust and coordination between stakeholders as well as to recommend the most suitable Industry 4.0 tools for improving relief operations. Firstly, a comprehensive set of critical success factors for implementing Industry 4.0 tools are introduced. The factors are categorized into limited groups using Exploratory Factor Analysis. In the next step, hierarchy fuzzy expert system is designed for assessing the readiness status of swift trust and coordination as well as to suggest the most suitable Industry 4.0 tool for enhancing HSC performance within given case study. The framework was applied for three aid organizations to address the pandemic disease in Iran. The outcome denotes that the organization has the highest readiness in logistic and transparency while information quality received the lowest readiness value. In addition to that, the organization should invest on the development of Industry 4.0 enablers including "Internet of Things and Big Data Analytics". The study extends organizational information process theory within HSC for reaching competitive advantage by information processing. The study suggests theoretical and practical implications by introducing a comprehensive set of critical success factors for implementation of Industry 4.0 and providing practical advice for enhancing HSC performance.

Methodology for Designing Humanitarian Supply Chains: Distribution of COVID-19 Vaccines in Mexico

This paper presents a methodology for designing a humanitarian supply chain (HSC) for immunization in Mexico. The study analyzes the abilities of HSCs provided in the literature and those that are relevant for the HSC vaccination in Mexico. In addition, the stakeholders involved in HSC for immunization were studied. A sentiment analysis of more than 900 newspaper articles was conducted to determine society’s perception of the government’s strategy for vaccine distribution. Considering these aspects and a review of the state-of-the-art in the design of supply chains, a methodology for HSC is proposed. Some of the findings are that resilience and agility, the most important abilities in HSCs in Mexico, can be achieved through government support and strong collaboration between different stakeholders, which was found to be the weakest point of the strategy. The problems observed in the vaccination strategy in Mexico were as follows: (1) a single physical space per municipality was defined for the application of the vaccine, (2) there is a shortage of vaccines, and (3) as far as we know, no methodology has been applied to carry out immunization. This approach considers the design of HSCs in terms of capabilities and stakeholders, which, to the best of our knowledge, is a novel aspect of the literature. This methodology can be used for various scenarios of HSCs in Mexico.

Ambidextrous humanitarian organizations

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted life as usual around the globe. Efforts to control the spread of the virus with lockdowns and border closures pushed millions of people into food and social insecurity. Most research on humanitarian organizations have been dominated by the uncertainty and urgency of disaster response operations. However, some humanitarian organizations also operate in long-term continuous aid programs where efficiency is the key goal. We analyzed the operations of food banks in the Feeding America network and The Salvation Army USA, and found them to be ambidextrous organizations. The ambidextrous humanitarian organizations like food banks and Salvation Army, focus on long-term continuous aid programs, specifically pertaining to the sustenance of the communities they serve, but also play a key part as first responders or as local agencies aiding in disaster relief and response. We propose a framework to analyze disaster, development, and sustenance aid supply chains, and identify future research opportunities.

A purchasing portfolio model for humanitarian supply chain resilience: perspectives from a development aid context

Purpose

The impact of supply disruptions from unplanned events can cause goods shortage, limited responsiveness and high opportunity cost thus compromising development aid programmes' achievement targets. These situations force humanitarian aid agencies to develop new strategies for effectively managing their supplies. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the foundation of humanitarian supply chain resilience through the development of an adapted Kraljic portfolio model.

Design/methodology/approach

Action research was used to adapt and validate the Kraljic portfolio model to the development aid context. The research team worked with a humanitarian aid agency in developing criterions and used Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) in weighting those key criterions.

Findings

The adapted portfolio model was able to evaluate purchases done by the aid agency by incorporating different perspectives related to the strategic importance of purchase and supply vulnerability. In particular, development aid programmes require large supplies annually. Better classification offers improved visualisation of purchases, leading to a more precise adoption of mitigation strategies and policies to minimise supply disruption risks.

Research limitations/implications

Adapting the Kraljic portfolio model is a stepping-stone to building humanitarian supply chain resilience. The proposed humanitarian supply chain resilience framework is based on the foundation that current humanitarian supply chain needs to be re-engineered. In order to re-engineer, the supply base strategy must first be revisited.

Practical implications

Many aid agencies do not have a holistic view on their purchases and commonly apply a transactional classification of purchases that only considers the consumption values. Purchasing strategies mostly focus on cost minimisation, whereas risk mitigations have been disregarded. The proposed portfolio model overcomes these drawbacks. Societal impact may be limited but development aid agencies will be able to offer more reliable aid delivery as part of their mandate.

Originality/value

The proposed portfolio model is among the first tool to guide humanitarian aid agencies to develop procurement strategies to alleviate supply disruptions and increase development aid programmes resilience.