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The learning outcomes are as follows: successful students will demonstrate an understanding of challenges in producing and delivering a product in emerging economies; they will be able to analyze the tradeoffs in operational decisions of a social enterprise; and students will apply supply chain principles to solve social and environmental challenges.

Carbon Roots International is a social enterprise in Haiti producing and selling charcoal from sugar cane waste. Their operational challenge is designing a supply chain, which enables them to accomplish their social goals while building a profitable enterprise.

This case can be used in graduate operations management and supply chain management courses. The company in the case is a social enterprise.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 9: Operations and Logistics

Epidemics and pandemics can result in sudden morbidity and mortality as well as social and economic disruption. However, the humanitarian logistics and supply chain management (HLSCM) field has been mostly focusing on life saving operations after natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes. There is no research within the HLSCM literature neither on the unique properties of vulnerable groups, nor their underlying risk factors or how to mitigate them. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the uniqueness of some vulnerable groups and motivated us to conduct a structured literature review to identify research needs in HLSCM with regards to vulnerable populations.

The authors conduct a systematic review of literature on the intersection of epidemics/pandemics, humanitarian operations and vulnerable populations. They utilize the Scopus database to search for peer-reviewed journal articles published in English. Our search results in 366 articles which we reduced to 139 after filtering.

There is no research within the HLSCM literature on the unique properties of various vulnerable populations. The authors show that HLSCM scholars can contribute to literature by investigating operational and logistical challenges of serving vulnerable populations through multi-disciplinary research, research on the intersection of public health and supply chain management, research on the intersection of ethics and operations management, and research on cross-sectoral partnerships.

The authors’ work is limited to peer-reviewed journal articles published in English. They did not include books, conference proceedings and think-tank or NGO reports. However, the authors do recognize that these sources can be very valuable.

To best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to review the literature on vulnerable populations under the threat of epidemics and pandemics.

In this research, the authors apply artificial neural networks (ANNs) to uncover non-linear relationships among factors that influence the productivity of ragpickers in the Indian context.

A broad long-term action research program provides a means to shape the research question and posit relevant factors, whereas ANNs capture the true underlying non-linear relationships. ANN models the relationships between four independent variables and three forms of waste value chains without assuming any distributional forms. The authors apply bootstrapping in conjunction with ANNs.

The authors identify four elements that influence ragpickers’ productivity: receptiveness to non-governmental organizations, literacy, the deployment of proper equipment/technology and group size.

This study provides a unique way to analyze bottom of the pyramid (BoP) operations via ANNs.

This study provides a road map to help ragpickers in India raise incomes while simultaneously improving recycling rates.

This research is grounded in the stakeholder resource-based view and the network–individual–resource model. It generalizes these theories to the informal waste value chain at BoP communities.

Humanitarian logistics has for a long time been argued to be a new discipline. Now that even the Journal of Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Management (JHLSCM) has existed over a decade, it is time to take a closer look at its evolution. This article provides some understanding for the developments of humanitarian logistics over the past decade, reveals current trends and discovers what lies behind the curtains in the humanitarian logistics and supply chain management discipline.

This article brings in developments and discussions in humanitarian logistics practice into the research domain.

The article conveys the concerns of humanitarian logistics practitioners to research. These include the backlash from the COVID-19 pandemic as a prime current concern, and also other longer-term issues and developments.

The themes identified in the article can be used to inform a research agenda in humanitarian logistics and supply chain management. The article revisits a framework of global events and their cascading impacts to include non-linearities and multiple disruptions from evolutionary disasters such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

The article argues for more collaborative and co-designed research to increase the relevance and impact of humanitarian logistics.

Wider societal views are brought into the area of humanitarian logistics.

The article highlights the gaps that remain in humanitarian logistics and supply chain management research.

Environmental concerns, government action and activism have increased the bar for how businesses operate. The United Nations also suggested sustainable performance in their SDG-12 and SDG-13 to achieve sustainability by 2030. Therefore, this research aimed to examine environmental and operational performance in the manufacturing context and how institutional pressure and manufacturing supply chain collaboration affect performance.

Data were collected from 207 manufacturing firms using purposive sampling. The hypotheses were tested through a Covariance-Based Structural Equation Modeling approach with the help of IBM SPSS AMOS version 22.0. The study conducted an explanatory factor analysis and found two sub-constructs (higher-order) for “institutional pressure.”

The findings illustrated that environmental performance significantly mediates the relationship between manufacturing supply chain collaboration and operational performance. The manufacturing supply chain collaboration significantly directly and indirectly affected operational performance. Likewise, institutional pressure was a crucial construct for manufacturing supply chain collaboration.

In earlier studies, the relationships of study variables were examined individually. However, this study validated all the relationships in an integrated model with one variable (institutional pressure) in higher order. The study is grounded in institutional and stakeholder theory and contributes to the literature on green measures. At the operational level, the research can assist managers in comprehending the function of various manufacturing supply chain players to assist the eco-friendly practices that help to achieve SDG-12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) and SDG-13 (Climate Action) by 2030.

Modern slavery is a humanitarian problem that affects global supply chains. Given the increasing pressures from legislature, consumers and investors, firms have a growing interest in eliminating forced labor and modern slavery from their supply chains. However, the impact of modern slavery on firm performance has not been shown before. This paper aims to investigate the impact of modern slavery allegations on companies’ operational performance. It also looks at the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts with respect to modern slavery.

The authors collect news articles on modern slavery in the global supply chains. The authors use an event study and use a robust matching method to measure the operational impact of modern slavery allegations. The authors also analyze the effects of media coverage and CSR practices on the relationship between allegations and firm performance.

The results show that modern slavery allegations do have a negative impact on performance, but this impact does not last long. The authors also show that strong CSR practices help firms mitigate the negative effect of these allegations.

Because the issue is hidden, as a result limited data, the research results may lack generalizability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to retest the proposed propositions in the future.

The paper includes implications for the development of socially responsible supply chains and financial impact.

This paper presents the first empirical research investigating the impact of modern slavery allegations on companies’ operational performance.

The purpose of this paper is to examine when and how organizations create agility, adaptability, and alignment as distinct supply chain properties to gain sustainable competitive advantage.

The current study utilizes the resource-based view (RBV) under the moderating effect of top management commitment (TMC). To test the research hypotheses, the authors gathered 351 usable responses using a pre-tested questionnaire.

The statistical analyses suggest that information sharing and supply chain connectivity resources influence supply chain visibility capability, which, under the moderating effect of TMC, enhance supply chain agility, adaptability, and alignment (SCAAA).

The contribution lies in: providing a holistic study of the antecedents of agility, adaptability, and alignment; investigating the moderating role of TMC on SCAAA; following the RBV and addressing calls for investigating the role of resources in supply chain management, and for empirical studies with implications for supply chain design.

An unprecedented scale of human migration has lead humanitarians to view camps as long-term settlements rather than temporary holding facilities. The purpose of this paper is to increase the understanding of and identify challenges with this proposed new approach to camp design.

Based on the camp design literature, the authors developed an interview guide and checklist for data collection. A multi-site case study and within- and cross-case analysis was then conducted.

The findings suggest that the proposed new approach is implemented only to a limited extent, and mostly in a stepwise manner. As camps mature, there is a shift toward the new approach, but most camps are established using the traditional top-down, temporary, and isolated approach.

The findings are based on four camps in four different countries and do not provide an exhaustive global coverage.

The insights the authors derived and the challenges identified from the empirical evidence can be used to better plan future camps.

The results can support improvements in camp design, thus alleviating suffering for both refugees and host communities, particularly in developing countries. In particular, the trade-off between a permanent solution and the temporary must be accounted for.

The study contributes to the literature by developing and proposing a conceptual framework to camp design. The cross-case analysis provides an initial understanding and categorization of challenges with implementing the new approach. It also suggests an evolutionary perspective of camp design.

The Covid-19 pandemic exposed the fragility of global supply chains. Attempts to deepen our understanding of the effects of the pandemic on global supply chains mostly offer anecdotal evidences and lack theory grounded research. The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework to help explain supply chain disruption management.

This is a conceptual paper and uses a theory building approach. It develops a conceptual framework adapted from coping theory in psychology to explain supply chain disruption management. To refine the framework, the authors independently reviewed extant supply chain disruption management literature. The authors then studied the frameworks on stress theory in psychology. Following the review of both streams of literatures, the authors developed an initial draft of the conceptual model. This draft was then iteratively refined through extensive discussions among the authors.

Coping theory can help revise supply chain disruption management with an alternative lens that has not been applied before in this domain. The proposed conceptual framework is generic and can be applied to disruption management strategies for any organization in any industry.

The conceptual framework proposed in this paper offers a new theoretical lens to supply chain disruption management discourse. It contributes to the operational understanding of supply chain disruption management.