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What Skills Are Needed to be a Humanitarian Logistician?
Author(s) -
Kovács Gyöngyi,
Tatham Peter,
Larson Paul D.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
journal of business logistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.611
H-Index - 79
eISSN - 2158-1592
pISSN - 0735-3766
DOI - 10.1111/j.2158-1592.2012.01054.x
Subject(s) - humanitarian logistics , business , procurement , context (archaeology) , supply chain , marketing , humanitarian aid , knowledge management , public relations , operations management , process management , economic growth , computer science , political science , engineering , economics , paleontology , biology
Logistic skills are of importance for employment and career development, and prior research has highlighted differences in skill requirements for different logistics functions as well as for different groups of logisticians. However, the continuing incidence of natural disasters and complex emergencies and their associated challenges including the requirement to build relationships with diverse stakeholders, has increased the demand for humanitarian logisticians—but there is, as yet, little understanding of which skills are important in this context. This article develops a conceptual framework for skills in the field of humanitarian logistics, and evaluates the framework through a content analysis of job advertisements with a special focus on the 2010 Haiti earthquake. This analysis concludes that humanitarian logisticians need a broad spectrum of functional skills (such as procurement, and warehouse and transport management) that must often be held in some depth. In addition, however, humanitarian logisticians need “contextual” skills that reflect their particular field of employment (such as security management and a comprehensive knowledge of donor regulations). It is suggested that such contextual skills are likely to feature in other areas of logistic employment, and that further research to identify these would lead to improvements in training and education programs.