Human Factors in Humanitarian Logistics – What We Know and What We Should Know

Lunch seminar in presence

Gyöngyi Kovács
Hanken School of Economics, Finland

Abstract:
Humanitarian logistics caters to the needs of society facing a disaster, crisis, or conflict. A typical characteristic of such situations is the duality between a heavily affected transport and communications infrastructure in the operational theatre vs a well-functioning one in staging areas. This also affects how humanitarian operations are carried out within the disaster area vs upstream the supply chain farther away from it. This seminar will revisit the implications of this duality for the human factors in such operations. Humanitarian logistics also requires a specific skill set for people to be effective. The second part of the seminar focuses on the differences in skills and competencies that are required of the humanitarian logistician.

Gyöngyi Kovács is the Erkko Professor in Humanitarian Logistics, and the Dean of Research at the Hanken School of Economics. She is a founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Management (JHLSCM) and is on the editorial board of several other journals. She was the first Director of the Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Research Institute (HUMLOG Institute) and has published extensively in the areas of humanitarian logistics and sustainable supply chain management. She was awarded humanitarian logistics researcher of the year 2020 by the American Logistics Aid Network ALAN. Recently, she has led the Horizon 2020 (EU) COVID-19 project HERoS (Health Emergency Response in Interconnected Systems), and since 2024 she is leading the Horizon Europe project WORM (Waste in Humanitarian Operations: Reduction and Minimisation).