Abstract

We conduct a comprehensive review of recent literature on humanitarian logistics and disaster response operations to provide exploratory-descriptive and correlational value to guide experimental and focused developments in humanitarian management. Special emphasis is placed on the underlying socio-technical phenomenon, the development of optimization models, data availability, the dynamic nature of disasters, uncertainty and the multiple objectives of a disaster supply chain, including the psychology of disasters and human behavior, organizational failures and the role of institutions. Theories, relevant research methods, and topics for future research are identified, resulting in a multidimensional framework for optimizing humanitarian logistics decisions.