A roadmap for higher research quality in humanitarian operations: A methodological perspective

Highlights

• It suggests a meta-process for a higher research quality in humanitarian operations research.

• It highlights a number of key methodological items to enhance the rigor and relevance of future studies.

• It discusses the implications of the study for authors and reviewers of manuscripts.

Abstract

Given the substantial costs of natural and man-made disasters (i.e., mortality, morbidity, and financial losses), scholars in operations management and operations research have conducted extensive research in the last decade in a humanitarian setting. A total of 43 studies that reviewed papers on disaster management and humanitarian operation and pointed out the research gaps in this field of study were published from 2006 to 2018. To enhance the rigor and relevance of future studies, this paper focuses on the methodological aspect of studies on humanitarian operations. The study highlights a set of vital items that should be considered when conducting research in a humanitarian setting: including the problem structuring, understanding the contextual factors in a humanitarian setting, acknowledging the uncertainties in humanitarian operations, incorporating uncertainty in the model, enabling technologies in model development and implementation, and selecting appropriate data and research methods. In addition, this study suggests a meta-process for research on humanitarian operations to target a higher level of research quality in this setting. The implications of the study for authors and reviewers of manuscripts and research proposals are discussed in the last section of the paper.

Introduction

Between 2001 and 2016, natural disasters left nearly 220 million people affected per year and caused US$ 120 billion economic losses on average (EM-DAT, 2017). In the last decade, we witnessed the three top natural disasters of the century, namely, the 2004 Asian tsunami, the 2008 Cyclone Nargis, and the 2010 Haiti earthquake, and they had a joint death toll of more than 500,000. Most natural disasters are cyclical, as can be observed during cyclone, typhoon, and hurricane seasons (with the latest one in 2017 being particularly devastating in the Americas), recurring rainy seasons, snowmelt floods, and earthquake cycles. Aside from natural disasters, the economic and non-economic effects of man-made disasters, such as terrorist threats and conflicts within countries (e.g., the crises in Syria and Yemen), have grown in the last years and have left many people killed, injured, or displaced (Balcik et al., 2016, Çelik, 2016). These situations are the contextual settings for humanitarian operations (HO) research. Nevertheless, HO research is not just limited to applying the traditional methods and theories of operations research (OR)/operations management (OM) to a new setting.

The humanitarian setting differs from a commercial setting in several aspects, which have to be incorporated in theory and in modeling research projects. The first key difference is the objective of disaster management, which is not profit making but saving lives and reducing human suffering (Gupta, Starr, Farahani, & Matinrad, 2016). The second main difference is that humanitarian organizations operate under high levels of uncertainty with respect to, inter alia, the timing, place, and quantity of demand; availability of international and local supplies and funding, destabilization of infrastructure (e.g., transportation and communication); the number of other organizations responding to the same disaster; and the behavior or reaction of beneficiaries (Burkart et al., 2016, Grass and Fischer, 2016, Hoyos et al., 2015, Liberatore et al., 2013). Interestingly, the context also drives the content of OR/OM research, sets critical operational constraints, and challenges research to overcome these constraints.

The remarkable negative effect of natural and man-made disasters on the lives of many people around the world and the critical role of logistics activities in relief aid have inspired scholars in OR, OM, and supply chain management (SCM) to conduct more research on HO, humanitarian logistics, and SCM in the last decade (Balçık, 2016, Galindo and Batta, 2013). This action coincides with the numerous HO-related special issues that have been published in mainstream OR/OM journals (e.g. Journal of Operations Management (Pedraza-Martinez & Van Wassenhove, 2016) and the European Journal of Operational Research (Besiou, Pedraza-Martinez, & Van Wassenhove, 2018), the launch of disaster management and HO editorial departments in top-tier journals such as Production and Operations Management¹ or Journal of Operations Management², and the establishment of a new outlet called Journal of Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Management³. In addition, forums such as POMS Humanitarian Operations and Crisis Management College and the European OR Societies (EURO) Working Group on Humanitarian Logistics⁴ provide platforms for exchanging information and best practices to enhance the rigor and practical relevance of HO studies.

Up until May 2018, 43 HO review papers providing insights into the development of the new interdisciplinary field of OM and OR were published. For many HO scholars, the goal of conducting research is not only to publish papers in academic journals but also to motivate practice by providing theoretical insights or offering decision-making tools to practitioners. Therefore, it is important to investigate the processes and techniques used to enhance the rigor and practical usefulness of HO research. In contrast to review papers that provide a topical overview of HO research, in this study, we analyze the methodology of the review papers and we suggest a framework and a set of guidelines to enhance the rigor of the research and the practical relevance of research projects in a humanitarian setting. The motivation for this study is to provide guidelines, especially for junior researchers entering this new field of study, by stressing the critical items in research projects (i.e., problem identification, data collection, assumptions, hypothesis development, modeling, and data analysis).

In this manuscript, we use methodology as a general research strategy that outlines the way in which research is to be undertaken (Howell, 2013). Accordingly, we identify fundamental issues that should be addressed while using any modeling or empirical methods in the context of humanitarian operations. The paper concludes by providing recommendations that aim at enhancing the impact of future research in this area, to the benefit of those affected by disasters and those providing relief.

In this study, we do not provide a detailed review of empirical or modeling methods, which have been rather extensively discussed in prior review papers. This manuscript presents an overview of the methodological items within prior studies and it provides insight into some common critical issues, which must be addressed in any method in a humanitarian setting, partly related to the method's rigor and partly related to the research's relevance. To assist interested readers in obtaining more knowledge about the items within our findings, we provide examples from past review papers and we cite other relevant references.

The paper is organized as follows. First, we review the literature on research quality in Operations Management and Supply Chain Management. Second, we collect and review the contribution of methods in previous HO review papers. Third, we analyze the collected data and suggest a process or roadmap to aim for a higher research quality in HO from a method perspective. Fourth, we conclude the findings and elaborate the study's implications for researchers and reviewers.