Humanitarian supply chain management: a thematic literature review and future directions of research

The field of supply chain management has been extensively studied, while its role in disaster relief operations has received limited contributions. Recent dedicated special issues on Humanitarian Operations and Supply Chain Management (HOSCM) and a dedicated Journal focusing on humanitarian logistics and supply chain management clearly indicate the growing popularity of the HOSCM literature. The purpose of our current study is to undertake an extensive review of extant literature published in operations and supply chain management journals as well as popular interdisciplinary journals. A review of 362 papers published between 2011 and 2017 provides a thematic outline of the study. The study pivots around nine key themes, which have gained prominent attention from HOSCM scholars, and draws a roadmap from reviewing earlier review papers to performance evaluation of HOSCM related studies. Some of the key themes include humanitarian logistics, theory focused research, case studies, mathematical models, humanitarian supply chain properties and resources needed for efficient and effective management of humanitarian operations. Finally, our study offers several research directions which may take the existing debates to a next level.