Humanitarian Supply Chain Management: A Bibliometric Analysis of the Literature

Humanitarian supply chain research is flourishing with high quality output majorly coming from the researchers geographically located in western part of the globe. The purpose of the study is to conduct a systematic literature review and understand the progress made in the last six years in humanitarian supply chain field. The period of 2009-2015 is selected basically to update the existing HSC literature since the last review was done by Peretti and co-authors which got published in the last year. Bibliometric analysis is applied to identify the trends in humanitarian supply chain publication, number of influential papers, top contributing authors, top contributing organizations, most popular keywords and citation measures. This study will provide food for thought to those who wish to conduct further research in this field. This study will also enable managers working with private international humanitarian organizations as well as policy makers in understanding the ongoing research in the field of humanitarian supply chain management. The handful number of influential papers will show the links and interrelationships and further assist in quick decision making during disaster relief operations.