Influence of Supply Chain Leagility on Performance of Humanitarian Aid Organizations in Kenya

Abstract

In today’s volatile and uncertain humanitarian environment, adopting a purely lean or a purely agile supply chain is not effective. Humanitarian organizations are struggling to obtain the highest possible performance from their supply chains by utilizing and adopting various supply chain designs. This is upon realization that despite the huge chunks of money pumped into humanitarian sector, stringent oversight by donors and expectations from vulnerable populations, humanitarian supply chains still respond in a sluggish, inefficient and poorly coordinated manner to emergencies. The purpose of this study was to explore the influence of supply chain responsiveness and waste management on performance of humanitarian aid organizations in Kenya. The underpinning theories and model in this study included; Decoupling Point theory; Theory of Constraints and SCOR model. Survey research design was employed for this study. The study entailed a census survey of all the 330 humanitarian aid organizations in Kenya with supply chain managers as the unit of observation. Questionnaires were used to collect primary data. Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics was used aided by SPSS version 24 to facilitate data analysis. The data was presented using a combination of statistical and graphical techniques. Trend analysis was used to spot a pattern on the sub-constructs of performance of humanitarian aid organizations for five years. The study findings revealed that supply chain responsiveness and waste management are positively associated with performance of humanitarian aid organizations. From the findings, most humanitarian aid organizations had knowingly or unknowingly partially implemented leagility design in their supply chains. The findings further showed that despite the rise in disaster resource allocation, the culture of preparedness was lacking in the country. Based on these findings and conclusions, the study recommended that to achieve and sustain an efficient and responsive supply chain, humanitarian aid organizations should design, implement and fully adopt leagility design in their humanitarian supply chains. Humanitarian aid organizations are recommended to embrace advanced technologies to improve their supply chain leagility. Donors on the other hand were encouraged to strengthen local capacity of affected communities and increase their funding on humanitarian aid operations. In addition, supply chain professionals should come up with new ways of predicting demand in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment learning from data from previous disasters. The study further recommends for a creation of a disaster preparedness plan that gives the way forward in times of tragedies or disasters.