Humanitarian and Traditional Supply Chains: An in-depth comparison for better cross-learning

Abstract

This article brings together the concept of humanitarian supply chain management (HSCM), which has proven itself in a state of disaster and disruptions, with the concept of traditional supply chain management (SCM) that has made great strides in an ever-changing global marketplace. Despite its fundamental importance for creative thinking, scarce are the papers that focused exclusively on the comparison of these inter-allied fields. Our conducted comparison pivots around six key criteria, which have gained prominent attention from scholars as well as practitioners in both areas, namely: challenges, resilience, forecasting management, knowledge management, inventory management, and also procurement management. Besides, the main objective of this paper is to provide future researchers with a platform to grasp the great potential of cross-learning among both fields, and consequently improve the performance of each through the proposed research directions.