Although knotty crisis situations are increasing in frequency, duration, and impact, their implications for operations management remain ill-understood. Having read a lot about the great failures of humanitarian organizations in responding to major disasters, Nonhlanhla Dube set out to investigate exactly how badly they performed in terms of timeliness in delivering assistance where it is needed. The researcher, who is affiliated both to FEB and Lancaster University, studied the response of international humanitarian organizations from the viewpoint of supply chain resilience. Dube surprisingly found that major disasters did not negatively impact the global operations of one studied aid agency, but instead their performance improved during one of the worst years in terms of major disasters.

In supply chain resilience, it is per definition accepted that major disruptive events like natural disasters lead to an unavoidable decline in performance. Supply chains must eventually ‘bounce back’ to their pre-disruption state or better. Dube found that one of the challenges international humanitarian organizations face are the inherent tensions between their interests and those of host governments. This leads to logistical inefficiencies for the international aid agencies. The capabilities of the host government with regards to regulation and enforcement determine the nature and severity of these logistical inefficiencies. In the most extreme of situations, the researcher discovered that the aid agencies can well overcome these challenges and even appear to thrive from them.

Reassuring resilience 

“When I analyzed transactional data of a major international humanitarian organization for the impact of the major 2010 disasters - the Haiti earthquake, Pakistan floods and the Chad and Haiti cholera outbreaks - on their global operations I found that not only did they avoid major delays in delivering supplies to almost 30 countries, but their performance improved during that year overall”, Dube explains. Stunningly, as the researcher refined her methods and expanded possible explanatory variables, the significance of her findings improved. “This possibility of gaining from chaotic situations has been discussed in the resilience literature for a long time but we had yet to prove it and understand exactly how it can happen.”

Of course, the researcher would not advocate that mother nature and human nature throw more nasty events at us. Yet, the reality is that natural disasters, health crises and conflicts will keep happening.  “Then, it is reassuring to know that supply chains - via its actors who have agency, autonomy and intelligence - have the capability to adapt even to the point of becoming more resilient and thriving under extreme conditions”, Dube states. Yet, resilience capabilities and considerations become unsuitable as crises become long-drawn out, thus it is important to understand that resilience is not the answer for every phase of a crisis.

Don’t hoard supplies

“If we can unlock the microprocesses of resilience, governments, companies, and individuals could avoid the harmful behaviour they engage in when they are in panic mode.” The researcher points out that some in all three groups are guilty of hoarding supplies at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. This led to serious shortages for others at a critical stage and a unbelievable waste of the same supplies further down the road. “It has recently been reported that the UK government has to write off over £8.7 billion in personal and protective equipment (PPE) alone that was ultimately not needed for responding to the pandemic and became obsolete or expired.”

So, supply chains adapt. Dube believes it is important to trust in this. “We can minimize the initial impact of extreme events like the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing crisis in Ukraine by staying calm and trusting supply chains to adapt. Once we start engaging in behaviour that worsens disruptions, the outcomes are worse for everyone. This includes, for example, those who hoard. How much food ended up in bins after people bought more than they needed in the first wave of the pandemic? We know for sure that this has been a multi-billion-dollar lesson for some governments.” Overall, Dube’s research demonstrates that alternatives to conventional operations management strategies and practices are needed in knotty contexts.

Scratching the surface

Dube is passionate about humanitarian operations and better understanding the challenges that they face and how they can get the most out of the often limited funds they raise to help populations in distress. Having worked in the sector for a few years, these issues never stopped weighing heavily on her mind. “We have seen a lot of innovation and unprecedented growth of organizations who made the right choices during the COVID-19 pandemic. I am curious to understand this better: how does it happen? Does it take only a crisis to achieve such a degree of self-transformation?” The researcher states that she and her colleagues have only begun to scratch the surface in understanding knotty operational contexts like the humanitarian one. “Conflict environments, for example, remain under-studied and a big picture view is generally lacking. From good intentions leading to bad outcomes and knock-on effects of short-sighted decisions, anything can go wrong at any point in time. But, my research also shows that a lot can be achieved. I hope to dig deeper into this and also more intently draw lessons for other sectors about doing the impossible job of conducting successful operations in complex, extreme, and hostile environments.”

Nonhlanhla Dube will defend her PhD thesis coming Thursday, 31 March 2022. The event will be live streamed at 14:30.