Initiators and motives for cooperation in humanitarian supply chains

Abstract

. Background: The concept of humanitarian supply chain management is based on theoretical and methodological assumptions of the idea of cooperation between industry and trade. The overarching goal of humanitarian aid is to save or improve people's quality of life, which makes the problem of economic efficiency a secondary issue. The subjective structure of supply chains is also different, which determines the division of roles and motives in the process of cooperation between their participants. The publication aims to identify differences and controversies related to the transformation of the business concept of supply chain management into the cooperation of entities as part of humanitarian aid actions. Consequently, the second objective tends to identify factors of logistic cooperation among humanitarian organizations. Methods: To achieve both goals, the article was divided into a theoretical part on the idea of logistics cooperation in supply chains (methods: logical analysis and critical analysis of the subject literature) and a presentation of the results of an anonymous questionnaire survey diagnosing initiators and determinants of logistics cooperation in humanitarian supply chains in Poland (methods: questionnaire survey and descriptive statistics). Results: Humanitarian and business supply chains differ in terms of the purpose of functioning, the main entity that coordinates material, information, financial, human and reverse flows, stakeholders of the activities carried out, the location of the idea of cooperation in the supply chain management system and the impact of external conditions on efficiency of functioning. Regularities are diagnosed with respect to the initiators and factors of logistic cooperation in humanitarian supply chains: (1) the main initiators of logistic cooperation in humanitarian supply chains are humanitarian organizations who (2) underestimate the important factors and opportunities to achieve synergistic effects, there is a (3) requirement for greater involvement of national government institutions and international humanitarian organizations, and (4) the type of a humanitarian crisis has an impact on logistic cooperation. Conclusions: A random sample of 100 humanitarian NGOs based on a survey requires a more complete diagnosis of the initiators and the correctness of logistic cooperation in humanitarian supply chains from the perspective of other actors and beneficiaries of aid actions, as well as in the context of competition of cooperating entities, i.e., coopetition. Survey responses obtained should be confronted with an in-depth analysis of a case study of logistic cooperation in humanitarian supply chains to war refugees from Ukraine.