Humanitarian Logistics: Challenges for Human Resource Management

Exponentially increased number of disasters and continuous failure of humanitarian aid lead to increase in attention towards humanitarian logistics. This paper aims at understanding the conceptual framework of humanitarian logistics with a special focus on the human resources involved in the disaster relief operations. The study used a conceptual research methodology through an extensive literature review from both academic and practitioner journals. The study attempts to identify the challenges for planning and managing human resources for a humanitarian-aid organization considering the uncertainty of disaster location and intensity. The study also tried to indicate the scope for further research in the area. The paper is conceptual in nature and empirical research is required to validate the findings. The study sets an agenda for academic research. The findings of the study will help the academia to establish a framework for studying the humanitarian organizations which are different from the general business organizations. The study also provides a tool for the practitioners to understand the challenges, plan, hire and retain the human resources accordingly. Research focus from academia in the area of humanitarian logistics is less compared to practitioner's research. Also, not much research concentrated on the human resources aspect of disaster management which is different when compared to the business organizations.