Procurement in humanitarian organizations: Body of knowledge and practitioner's challenges

Mohammad Moshtari; Nezih Altay; Jussi Heikkilä; Paulo Goncalves

doi:10.1016/j.ijpe.2020.108017

Procurement in humanitarian organizations: Body of knowledge and practitioner's challenges

Mohammad Moshtari
, Nezih Altay
, Jussi Heikkilä
, Paulo Goncalves

Industrial Engineering and Management

Research output: Contribution to journal › Review Article › peer-review

71 Citations (Scopus)

792 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

The procurement of products and services is a critical and challenging process for humanitarian organizations (HOs), accounting for approximately 65% of the costs of relief operations. Despite its importance, procurement in humanitarian operations remains under examined. This study reviews 51 scholarly articles related to procurement in the context of humanitarian operations and analyzes them from multiple angles: specific procurement tasks, key problems/research questions, data sought, and methods used. We complement the insights from the literature review with those from a set of interviews of humanitarian practitioners and HO suppliers of products and services. This allows us to shed light into real practices of humanitarian procurement, and the critical challenges and dilemmas they face. Our dual lens combining an academic and practical perspective also suggests possible research avenues for future studies. The paper provides insights for researchers studying procurement within humanitarian operations.

Original language	English
Article number	108017
Number of pages	15
Journal	International Journal of Production Economics
Volume	233
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpe.2020.108017
Publication status	Published - 2021
Publication type	A2 Review article in a scientific journal

Funding

The authors thank Peter Kelle, and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments which helped to signiﬁcantly improve the paper. Special thanks go to practitioners and managers at humanitarian organizations and businesses who offered their time and thoughts throughout the data collection. In addition, the authors appreciate and thank the Academy of Finland (Grant No: 332921 ) for supporting this research.

Keywords

Humanitarian logistics
Humanitarian operations
Humanitarian organization
Procurement

Publication forum classification

Publication forum level 2

ASJC Scopus subject areas

General Business,Management and Accounting
Economics and Econometrics
Management Science and Operations Research
Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Access to Document

10.1016/j.ijpe.2020.108017Licence: CC BY

1-s2.0-S0925527320303662-main
CC BY
Final published version, 1.19 MBLicence: CC BY

http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202101131220Licence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "Procurement in humanitarian organizations: Body of knowledge and practitioner's challenges",

abstract = "The procurement of products and services is a critical and challenging process for humanitarian organizations (HOs), accounting for approximately 65\% of the costs of relief operations. Despite its importance, procurement in humanitarian operations remains under examined. This study reviews 51 scholarly articles related to procurement in the context of humanitarian operations and analyzes them from multiple angles: specific procurement tasks, key problems/research questions, data sought, and methods used. We complement the insights from the literature review with those from a set of interviews of humanitarian practitioners and HO suppliers of products and services. This allows us to shed light into real practices of humanitarian procurement, and the critical challenges and dilemmas they face. Our dual lens combining an academic and practical perspective also suggests possible research avenues for future studies. The paper provides insights for researchers studying procurement within humanitarian operations.",

keywords = "Humanitarian logistics, Humanitarian operations, Humanitarian organization, Procurement",

author = "Mohammad Moshtari and Nezih Altay and Jussi Heikkil{\"a} and Paulo Goncalves",

note = "Funding Information: The authors thank Peter Kelle, and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments which helped to signiﬁcantly improve the paper. Special thanks go to practitioners and managers at humanitarian organizations and businesses who offered their time and thoughts throughout the data collection. In addition, the authors appreciate and thank the Academy of Finland (Grant No: 332921 ) for supporting this research. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2020 The Author(s) Copyright: Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.",

year = "2021",

doi = "10.1016/j.ijpe.2020.108017",

language = "English",

volume = "233",

journal = "International Journal of Production Economics",

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TY - JOUR

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T2 - Body of knowledge and practitioner's challenges

AU - Moshtari, Mohammad

AU - Altay, Nezih

AU - Heikkilä, Jussi

AU - Goncalves, Paulo

N1 - Funding Information: The authors thank Peter Kelle, and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments which helped to signiﬁcantly improve the paper. Special thanks go to practitioners and managers at humanitarian organizations and businesses who offered their time and thoughts throughout the data collection. In addition, the authors appreciate and thank the Academy of Finland (Grant No: 332921 ) for supporting this research. Publisher Copyright: © 2020 The Author(s) Copyright: Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

PY - 2021

Y1 - 2021

N2 - The procurement of products and services is a critical and challenging process for humanitarian organizations (HOs), accounting for approximately 65% of the costs of relief operations. Despite its importance, procurement in humanitarian operations remains under examined. This study reviews 51 scholarly articles related to procurement in the context of humanitarian operations and analyzes them from multiple angles: specific procurement tasks, key problems/research questions, data sought, and methods used. We complement the insights from the literature review with those from a set of interviews of humanitarian practitioners and HO suppliers of products and services. This allows us to shed light into real practices of humanitarian procurement, and the critical challenges and dilemmas they face. Our dual lens combining an academic and practical perspective also suggests possible research avenues for future studies. The paper provides insights for researchers studying procurement within humanitarian operations.

AB - The procurement of products and services is a critical and challenging process for humanitarian organizations (HOs), accounting for approximately 65% of the costs of relief operations. Despite its importance, procurement in humanitarian operations remains under examined. This study reviews 51 scholarly articles related to procurement in the context of humanitarian operations and analyzes them from multiple angles: specific procurement tasks, key problems/research questions, data sought, and methods used. We complement the insights from the literature review with those from a set of interviews of humanitarian practitioners and HO suppliers of products and services. This allows us to shed light into real practices of humanitarian procurement, and the critical challenges and dilemmas they face. Our dual lens combining an academic and practical perspective also suggests possible research avenues for future studies. The paper provides insights for researchers studying procurement within humanitarian operations.

KW - Humanitarian logistics

KW - Humanitarian operations

KW - Humanitarian organization

KW - Procurement

U2 - 10.1016/j.ijpe.2020.108017

DO - 10.1016/j.ijpe.2020.108017

M3 - Review Article

AN - SCOPUS:85098751368

SN - 0925-5273

VL - 233

JO - International Journal of Production Economics

JF - International Journal of Production Economics

M1 - 108017

ER -

Procurement in humanitarian organizations: Body of knowledge and practitioner's challenges

Abstract

Funding

Keywords

Publication forum classification

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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Cite this