Navigating Crisis: The Contribution of Humanitarian-Business Partnerships to Humanitarian Logistics

The significance of effective management of humanitarian logistics cannot be overstated. As humanitarian operations become increasingly complex, enhancing logistics performance has become a critical priority. Humanitarian organizations operate in environments marked by volatile demand and supply patterns, fragile infrastructure, fragmented information systems, and persistent coordination challenges. Although progress has been made, these factors often exceed the capacity of humanitarian organizations acting alone. Cross-sector partnerships, particularly those involving business corporations, provide strategic opportunities to strengthen humanitarian logistics by facilitating the transfer of supply chain expertise, resources, and technologies from the business to the humanitarian sector. This doctoral thesis investigates the utilization of humanitarian–business partnerships in humanitarian logistics. Its central aim is to examine how such partnerships can be designed and managed to improve humanitarian logistics performance. Specifically, the thesis explores the contexts in which partnerships are most relevant, analyzes the initiation and development processes, investigates operational mechanisms, and evaluates their outputs and outcomes. The thesis employs a mixed-methods design, combining a systematic literature review, content analysis, experimental research, and multiple case studies. It comprises four empirical studies (Chapters 2–5), which collectively contribute to the overarching research objective and the theoretical advancement of the thesis. Chapter 2 contributes a systematic literature review synthesizing the state of the art on humanitarian–business partnerships using the CIMO-logic (Context–Intervention–Mechanism–Outcome). The findings show that humanitarian organizations seek business-sector expertise to improve logistics performance, whereas business corporations are motivated by social responsibility and opportunities to learn from humanitarian supply chains, while also revealing a paucity of empirical evidence on outcomes. Building on this, Chapter 3 develops and empirically validates a typology and operational framework, identifying eight dimensions of operationalization and demonstrating that most humanitarian–business collaborations are dominated by monetary contributions, dyadic in nature, and frequently short-term and focused on the response phase. Chapter 4 advances knowledge by examining the perspective of individual private donors through conjoint and real-money experiments, with findings indicating preferences for in-kind contributions, long-term collaborations, and transparency, while also showing that donors are more strongly influenced by humanitarian than corporate partners, though actual donation behaviour only partially aligns with stated preferences. Finally, Chapter 5 contributes evidence from multiple case studies, demonstrating that effective partnerships are best established in the preparedness phase and are characterized by business process redesign, shared humanitarian objectives, and the use of information systems to improve integration and increase effectiveness. Chapter 6 integrates these findings and demonstrates how they collectively address the overarching objectives of the thesis. The results show that humanitarian–business partnerships, when strategically designed and carefully managed, can substantially enhance the responsiveness, efficiency, and adaptability of humanitarian logistics. Their effectiveness depends on early establishment during preparedness, alignment of objectives, redesigned processes, and the use of information technologies to strengthen coordination and integration. Taken together, the thesis demonstrates that cross-sector partnerships are a vital asset for humanitarian organizations, as they improve humanitarian logistics performance. At the same time, it contributes to both theory and practice by providing actionable insights for building more effective, resilient, and sustainable supply chains.