Performance management practices in humanitarian organisations

Hella Abidi,Wout Dullaert,Sander De Leeuw

doi:10.1108/jhlscm-05-2019-0036

Abstract

PurposeWe examine how design and implementation practices for supply chain performance management that have proven successful in commercial organisations apply to humanitarian organisations (HOs) to guide the process of designing and implementing performance management in humanitarian organisations.Design/methodology/approachWe identify from the literature ten successful practices regarding the design and implementation of supply chain performance management in commercial businesses. We apply these, using action research over a four-year period, at Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) Belgium and draw conclusions from this.FindingsWe find that tools and techniques, such as workshops and technical sheets, are essential in designing and implementing supply chain performance measurement projects at HOs. Furthermore, making a link to an IT project is crucial when implementing performance measurement systems at HOs. Overall, our case study shows that performance management practices used in business can be applied and are relevant for humanitarian supply chains.Originality/valuePrevious research has argued that there are few empirical studies in the domain of performance management at humanitarian organisations. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first to provide a longitudinal understanding of the design and implementation of supply chain performance measurement at HOs.

Highlights

To date, supply chain performance measurement at Humanitarian Organisations (HOs) has not been as systematically designed and implemented as in commercial companies or the military (Abidi et al, 2014; Vega, 2018)
Once humanitarian organisations (HOs) did begin to address performance measurement and management, several key issues emerged (e.g. Beamon and Balcik, 2008). One such issue was how, in response to donor requests, to design and implement a supply chain performance measurement system that goes beyond financial indicators
In this study at Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) Belgium, we focused on two main phases of performance measurement, design and implementation

Summary

Introduction

Supply chain performance measurement at Humanitarian Organisations (HOs) has not been as systematically designed and implemented as in commercial companies or the military (Abidi et al, 2014; Vega, 2018). Performance management practices in the design phase Organisation of a kick-off meeting of the performance management group at the headquarters of MSF Belgium to clarify MSF Belgium’s supply chain strategy (Appendices 1 and 3) Identification of the key objectives linked to MSF Belgium’s strategy and its supply chain strategy using interviews (Appendix 3) and a mind-map (Appendix 7) Identification of whether, and if so to what extent, these performance indicators are relevant when evaluating the supply chain performance at MSF Belgium and to reduce the number of performance indicators through on-site meetings with employees from different divisions (Appendix 3), application of the Analytical Hierarchy Process (Appendix 4) and a workshop Ensuring the appropriateness of the performance indicators for each supply chain process and for each organisational supply chain level through a workshop and a technical sheet (Appendix 2) Agreement over the design of performance indicators that cover all three aspects (efficiency, effectiveness and flexibility), establishment of a measurement procedure and enhancement of the performance management culture within the operating group at MSF Belgium through a workshop and a technical sheet Future research could focus on examining the impact of big data and predictive analytics on humanitarian supply chains and organisational performance in a similar way to the research by Gunasekaran et al (2017) has addressed the business environment

Objectives

Findings

11. What would having a common set of supply chain KPIs mean for your projects?