Building humanitarian supply chain relationships: lessons from leading practitioners

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to advance thought and practice on supply chain relationship building, in the context of humanitarian logistics, drawing on lessons from leading practitioners. Design/methodology/approach The presentations were treated like data, enabling grounded research concerning practitioners. The presentations were recorded, transcribed, vetted, and imported into qualitative software (NVivo8) to facilitate further analysis, which led to testable propositions. Findings Three themes emerged, centered around relationship benefits, challenges, and advice on relationship building. Advice from the practitioners led to 11 propositions. Research limitations/implications While the presentations were treated as interview data, there was no opportunity to probe statements made by the speakers. Also, speakers were the sole representatives for their organizations. Finally, the findings cannot be generalized beyond the types of situations and organizations represented at the conference. Practical implications The propositions represent advice from experienced humanitarian practitioners on building supply chain relationships. Social implications Supply chains are economic entities. They are also social entities. Humanitarian supply chains involve people working together to help other people in need. Originality/value There are few published articles on supply chain relationship building, and only several pieces on humanitarian partnerships or relationships. This paper contributes to the literature in a novel way, by drawing on expert speakers at a humanitarian conference.