A systematic review of humanitarian supply chains performance measurement literature from 2007 to 2021

Performance measurement has been an integral component of decision-making concerning the efficiency, effectiveness, and transparency of disaster relief operations. Recently, there has been an increasing amount of research in humanitarian relief supply chain performance measurement, which necessitates a thorough analysis of recent developments. To this end, this paper provides a systematic review of humanitarian supply chain performance measurement studies, through a categorical analysis of research articles. The authors identified and categorized research articles according to seven structural dimensions: disaster type, context of operation, disaster management phase, data analysis technique, level of analysis, performance measurement system development process, and performance measurement theme. This review intends to link the trends and theories in the broader body of performance measurement to the specific issues encountered in humanitarian supply chain performance measurement. A systematic literature review was developed by employing the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis methodology. The authors identified and reviewed 83 peer-reviewed journal articles that have appeared since 2007, the year in which the first journal article on humanitarian supply chain performance measurement was published. The review reveals that while there is a growing literature on humanitarian supply chain performance measurement, there is limited empirical evidence about performance measurement system implementation. This paper identifies two key research streams: contextual-based performance measurement and simulation and predictive performance measurement. This review contributes to theory by developing detailed categories of performance measurement studies and future research directions. The results are limited to peer reviewed journals focusing on supply chain and operations management literature, and hence do not cover the literature from humanitarian organizations technical reports, independent evaluations and other academic fields such as organizational studies or accounting literature.