Humanitarian Operations & Supply Chain Management

Date:

Time:

10.00 – 16.00 h.

Location:

Utrecht

Lecturer:

Dr. Harwin de Vries

Days:

2

ECTS:

0.5 (attendance only) | 2 (attendance + passing assignment)

Course fee:

Free for TRAIL/Beta/OML/ERIM members, others please contact the TRAIL office.

Registration:

See below – pre-registration.

Objectives:

After completing this course, students will be able to:

  • Describe what defines Humanitarian Operations & Supply Chain Management (HOSCM) research, and how it differs from general OSCM
  • Evaluate the potential for academic and practical impact for a given HOSCM research idea
  • Recognize pitfalls in HOSCM research and identify research designs that address or avoid these pitfalls
  • Describe best practices in practice-based research in HOSCM
  • Reflect upon their own research based on the above perspectives
  • Understand the state-of-the-art and research opportunities in emerging topics in HOSCM research, including:
    • AI for humanitarian operations management
    • Decision support for humanitarian operations management
    • HOSCM research for advocacy – Localization, local procurement, mutualization, and preparedness

 

Course description:

Humanitarian operations & supply chain management (aka humanitarian logistics/ operations management/ supply chain management) is a relatively young branch within the broader field of operations and supply chain management (OSCM). To contribute through research, it is hence not only key to have an overview of what has been done, and what is state of the art, but also how research in this fields differs from and relates to OSCM, and what research makes a successful contribution to both. This course therefore has three key objectives. First, it aims to provide PhD students with a better overview of the growing discipline of humanitarian operations management – What defines this discipline? What has been done? What is “state-of-the-art”? Where are the opportunities going forward? Second, it aims to strengthen students’ understanding of what makes research in humanitarian operations management interesting, successful, and impactful. Are humanitarian operations projects different from other strands of operations management? How and in how far? What are the implications of these differences for research? What is the “anatomy” of a good research question/ project, and what are best practices for executing it in the humanitarian field? The third aim is simply to connect to other PhD candidates in your field and have fun!

In line with these three aims, the course will consist of three types of sessions:

  • Sessions where we reflect on what defines (successful/ impactful/ interesting) HOSCM research. See sessions 1, 2, and 5 in the overview below
  • Sessions that dive into a specific current research topic within HOSCM to provide an overview of what has been done and a discussion on what could be next. See sessions 3, 4, 6, and 7 in the overview below
  • A session in which we reflect upon the process of doing HOSCM research. See session 8 in the overview below

Assignment:

The course asks students to prepare two 10-minute presentations, which they will be asked to hold at day 1 and day 2, respectively: 1. Interesting HOSCM research. Pick your favorite paper from the HOSCM field and briefly describe: 1) the research question/ objective, 2) its motivation, 3) a rough sketch of the methodology, 4) the key findings, and 5) what makes this research interesting for you. Spend at least 4 of the 10 minutes on discussing element 5). Try to not only refer to the specifics of the paper but also distill general learnings: What are the fundamental ingredients of an interesting HOSCM paper? 2. Pitching your own HOSCM research. Prepare a presentation in which you pitch – that is: sell – your own envisioned, planned, or ongoing research project. Include, as far as possible, the same elements as the first presentation. Explicitly motivate why your project is interesting/ has the potential to yield interesting/ impactful results. Why would someone want to ready your paper? Why will a top journal publish it?

Program:

  ACTIVITY TITLE FORMAT FACILITATOR/ SPEAKER
Day 1 Session 1 Welcome and introduction — What defines “Humanitarian OM” research? Discussion + presentation Tina + Harwin
Session 2 What makes research in Humanitarian Operations Management interesting? Students describe 1 key paper they find interesting & why + discussion + faculty presentation Tina + Harwin
Lunch
Session 3 Research topic*: AI for Humanitarian OM Presentation + discussion Tina
Session 4 Research topic*: HOSCM Research for Advocacy Presentation + discussion Harwin
Social activity
Day 2 Session 5 Student research pitches + discussion based on session 1 & 2 learnings Student presentations + discussion Tina + Harwin
Session 6 Research topic*: Analytics for Humanitarian OM/ Cash & Voucher Assistance/ Equity Presentation  + discussion Guest speaker – TDB
Lunch
Session 7 Research topic*: Decision support (models) for Humanitarian OM Presentation + discussion Tina + Harwin
Session 8 Practice-based & field research in Humanitarian OM – What, why, and how? Presentation + discussion Guest speaker – TBD
*Overview + discussion of what has been done, what is the state-of-the-art, and what could be next.

Literature:

Methodology:

Course material:

Readings/ sources:
Session 1 Kembro, J., Kunz, N., Frennesson, L., & Vega, D. (2024). Revisiting the definition of humanitarian logistics. Journal of Business Logistics, 45(2), e12376.
Kunz, N., & Reiner, G. (2012). A meta‐analysis of humanitarian logistics research. Journal of Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Management, 2(2), 116-147.
Session 2 Cachon, G. P. (2012). What is interesting in operations management?. Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 14(2), 166-169.
Van Mieghem, J. A. (2013). OM forum—Three Rs of operations management: Research, relevance, and rewards. Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 15(1), 2-5.
Session 3 Comes, T. (2024). AI for crisis decisions. Ethics and Information Technology, 26(1), 12.
Coppi, G., Moreno Jimenez, R., & Kyriazi, S. (2021). Explicability of humanitarian AI: a matter of principles. Journal of International Humanitarian Action, 6(1), 19.
Session 4 Parsa, I., Eftekhar, M., & Corbett, C. J. (2022). Does governance ease the overhead squeeze experienced by nonprofits?. Production and Operations Management, 31(8), 3288-3303.
Frennesson, L., Kembro, J., de Vries, H., Jahre, M., & Van Wassenhove, L. (2022). International humanitarian organizations’ perspectives on localization efforts. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 83, 103410.
Session 6 TBD
TBD
Session 7 De Vries, H., & Van Wassenhove, L. N. (2020). Do optimization models for humanitarian operations need a paradigm shift?. Production and Operations Management, 29(1), 55-61.
Comes, T., Van de Walle, B., & Van Wassenhove, L. (2020). The coordination‐information bubble in humanitarian response: theoretical foundations and empirical investigations. Production and Operations Management, 29(11), 2484-2507.
Session 8 Gallien, Jérémie, Stephen C. Graves, and Alan Scheller-Wolf. “OM Forum—Practice-based research in operations management: What it is, why do it, related challenges, and how to overcome them.” Manufacturing & Service Operations Management 18.1 (2016): 5-14.
Guide Jr, V. D. R., & Van Wassenhove, L. N. (2007). Dancing with the devil: Partnering with industry but publishing in academia. Decision Sciences, 38(4), 531-546.
Suggested further readings
Bertrand, J. W. M., & Fransoo, J. C. (2002). Operations management research methodologies using quantitative modeling. International journal of operations & production management, 22(2), 241-264.
Baharmand, H., Vega, D., Lauras, M., & Comes, T. (2022). A methodology for developing evidence-based optimization models in humanitarian logistics. Annals of Operations Research, 319(1), 1197-1229.
Mitroff, I. I., Betz, F., Pondy, L. R., & Sagasti, F. (1974). On managing science in the systems age: two schemas for the study of science as a whole systems phenomenon. Interfaces, 4(3), 46-58.
Geoffrion, A. M. (1976). The purpose of mathematical programming is insight, not numbers. Interfaces, 7(1), 81-92.
Gralla, E., & Goentzel, J. (2018). Humanitarian transportation planning: Evaluation of practice-based heuristics and recommendations for improvement. European Journal of Operational Research, 269(2), 436-450.
Kunz, N., Van Wassenhove, L. N., Besiou, M., Hambye, C., & Kovacs, G. (2017). Relevance of humanitarian logistics research: best practices and way forward. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 37(11), 1585-1599.
Schaumann, S. K., Thakur-Weigold, S. B., & Van Wassenhove, L. N. (2024). Reconciling Rigor Versus Relevance: Lessons from Humanitarian Fleet Management. Production and Operations Management.
Kunz, N., Van Wassenhove, L. N., Besiou, M., Hambye, C., & Kovacs, G. (2017). Relevance of humanitarian logistics research: best practices and way forward. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 37(11), 1585-1599.
Besiou, M., & Van Wassenhove, L. N. (2020). Humanitarian operations: A world of opportunity for relevant and impactful research. Manufacturing & service operations management, 22(1), 135-145.

Prerequiste:

Pre-registration form


Member of research school:

Contact

GP-OML office
Conchita van der Stelt
c.vanderstelt@rstrail.nl
+31(0)15 27 89256