Dynamic capabilities (DC) play a critical role in addressing logistics challenges during emergency responses to natural disasters. While researchers in logistics operations (LO) acknowledge this importance, the specific context of major earthquakes remains underexplored. This study aims to analyze logistics challenges in emergency responses to major earthquakes, with a focus on the experiences of Türkiye’s recent seismic events. An exploratory mixed-methods approach that combines qualitative and quantitative methodologies. The research includes a systematic review of 23 academic articles published between 1999 and 2023, supplemented by secondary sources (news, websites, reports) and expert interviews. The Best-Worst Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (BWM) method was employed to identify and prioritize key criteria and alternatives for DC and logistics challenges. The Weighted Sum Model (WSM) prioritizes the other options. The findings highlight the core logistics challenges in earthquake responses, such as responsiveness and agility. Key DCs— organizational learning, visibility, information flow, robustness, delivery reliability and speed—were essential to mitigating risks for affected populations. This research supports and extends the humanitarian logistics literature by offering a DC framework to address logistics challenges in large-scale disasters, providing practical insights for improving response effectiveness during major earthquakes.

Purpose  Researchers in disaster operations (DO) admitted the fundamental role of dynamic capabilities (DC) in reducing the logistics challenges in response to natural disasters, but to our knowledge, partial explanations are concerned with challenges in response to large-scale disruptions due to major earthquakes.  This study analyses the emergency response to large-scale disruptions (natural), meeting logistics challenges in disaster operations - using the experiences from the major earthquakes that struck Türkiye.

Design/methodology/approach.   The authors use an exploratory approach by mixing qualitative and quantitative methodology. The authors examined academic literature (23 articles) conducted between 1999 and 2023; secondary materials (news, websites, and articles); and data collected from the expert interview by employing the Best-Worst, Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (BWM) method to explore criteria and priority of alternatives related to DC and logistics challenges.  

Findings  First, fundamental logistics challenges during large-scale disruptions due to major earthquakes are related to the requirement DC critical to the response system responsiveness and agility. Second, estimated most requested DC to the response system responsiveness followed by its agility were suggested, such as organizational learning, visibility, information, robustness, delivery reliability, and speed to mitigate the risks on affected populations.  

Research limitations/implications.  Limitations are due to giving only academic and secondary materials, one interview, and BWM estimations. Future research would require broadening the sample to different groups of respondents and materials. Policy implications are related to the dilemma of balancing the urgent need for structural reinforcements and mitigating the logistical challenges. Managerial implications are related to the role of public and private organizations being raised at the cost of NGO, voluntary, and national authorities’ sectors.

Original/value  The study contributes to the literature on humanitarian logistics by addressing DC to meet the logistics challenges during the response to large-scale disasters due to major earthquakes. 

In this study, we argue that recognizing dynamic capabilities (DC) as a learning process is a key step in developing supply chain resilience. This sustains the needs of companies and individuals during the recovery and mitigation stages. This study draws on sensemaking theory to enact learning. Learning as the sensemaking of individuals and organisations in crisis conditions vehicles behavioural processes of managerial risk decision-making in uncertain environments. Learning can impact the individual and company's outcome in building DC for recovery and mitigation from crises and conclude that not only DC are strategic to recovery and mitigation, but meta and functional capabilities are also crucial for the supply chain resilience (SCR). This study examines the learnings from crises and the implications of dynamic capabilities for supply chain resilience. Specifically, recovery and the mitigation stages use the experiences of individuals as well as organisations. DC would be used to perform within significantly differing strategies to create quick solutions, the prevailing approaches used to manage supply chain resilience are less appropriate. While this study focuses on DC to help solve the recovery and mitigation of crises, broader learning applicability to other resilient supply chain are also discussed, such as  the design and management of long-term strategies of contextually specific supply chains.   

Purpose

Performance is widely used to describe the success of commercial supply chain profitability (SCP), capturing novel markets and addressing diverse and evolving customer needs. New customer offers and services have resulted in a higher rate of product returns (PR) from consumers. However, return logistics management (RLM) has not been adequately addressed. As a result, this study aims to explore the various performance areas within the supply chain, specifically those related to PR in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector, and how they impact supply chain RLM operations.

Design/methodology/approach

This study focuses on FMCGs. The study adopts an inductive approach to qualitative data from companies. We collect and analyse interviews from Swedish companies and secondary data to describe supply chain performance and how it is affected by the PRs in the FMCG current sector through the impact on RLM in an observed case company

Findings

We show some of the main problems and impacts on the performance of the supply chain through problems created for RLM when product returns are not managed adequately. The study identified that several PR drivers, namely quality, contractual, customer service, and legislation, are imposing challenges that impact the RLM and the SCP of the current FMCG sector.

Research limitations/implications

The study shows how problems can arise in RLM and their likely effects; however, exact performance effects are not demonstrated.

Original/value

The paper contributes to understanding supply chain performance in an RLM context.

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to analyse the crisis network response of European countries and the role played by defence organizations(DOs) during the early response phase of the pandemic, here set to encompass 75 days.

Design/methodology/approach – Published materials – reports, news and communications – provided by authorities and DOs were used. Some ofthe authors actively participated in national pandemic response networks. An exploratory approach and qualitative content analysis were applied.The data were collected in national languages from 13 European countries, and they were coded and analysed using the actors, resources andactivities (ARA) framework.

Findings – This study identified three main categories of activity structures in which the DOs interacted with civilian members of response networks,health-related services, logistics services and public support services. These networks among actors were found within formal response systems andemergent networks. The DOs engaged as actors that provided a range of services when civil authorities could not cope with the huge demand forspecific services and when resources were scarce in the initial response phase.

Originality/value – This study contributes by filling an important research gap with regard to the civil-military relations associated with the use ofDO resources in the civil response to the pandemic crisis in Europe, which is described as an untraditional response. The ARA network approachprovides a framework for arranging ARA and extends the wider civil-military network to expand the formal networks of the early crisis response. Thestudy lays knowledge about the co-operation between civilian and military actors in different contexts and provides a broader understanding of theroles that DOs played in the response operations.

Purpose Governments regularly release emergency preparedness information and communication to households because household preparedness can mitigate global supply chain management disruptions due to crises. Such information can only help if households interpret it as intended and act as suggested. The purpose is to explore the Swedish households’ sensemaking of emergency information and the impact on supply chain preparedness.

Design/methodology/approach The research adopts an inductive approach to qualitative data. We collect and analyze 75 interviews from 51 Swedish households in three waves (2019, 2021, 2022) corresponding to recent supply chain disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and the invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops. This allows us to explore the households’ understanding of emergency preparedness information and how it affects their actions.

Findings The findings indicate that not all crises trigger equal sensemaking of emergency preparedness information. We find several distinct groups of households and label these early adopters and laggards respectively and discuss how this affects global supply chains. Good crisis communication can reduce real demand when a crisis happens by reducing peaks in demand. However, some false demand is still created, and some people are entirely unaffected by the crisis communication.

Research limitations/implications The research is based on a focused sample of interviewees. Future research can broaden the sample to different groups of respondents.

Original/value The paper contributes to the literature about emergency preparedness and global supply chains by suggesting that household sensemaking and perceptions of emergency preparedness communication have real effects by reducing demand peaks. We then connect this to global supply chains and how are affected by the crises

This study sheds light on the Hydrogen technology in transportation for reaching the sustainability goals of societies, illustrated by the case of Mexico. In terms of the affected supply chains the study explores how the packaging and distribution of a fuel-saving tool that allows the adoption of hydrogen as complementary energy for maritime transportation to improve economic and environmental performance in Mexico. This exploratory study performs interviews, observations, simulations, and tests involving producers, suppliers, and users at 26 ports in Mexico. The study shows that environmental and economic performance are related to key processes in Supply Chain Management (SCM) in which packaging and distribution are critical for achieving logistics and transportation sustainability goals. Reusable packaging and the distribution of a fuel-saving tool can help decrease costs -, of transport, and downstream/upstream processes in SCM while at the same time increasing the environmental performance.

Background: The enacted sensemaking of third-party logistics (TPL) providers during the pandemic crisis may present an opportunity to explore their strategic operations.

Objectives: The aim is to understand the TPL strategic implications related to a crisis and specifically how TPL providers make sense of and respond to crises. The two research questions are as follows: How has the COVID-19 pandemic crisis affected the business operations of TPL providers? What have TPL providers learnt from enacting the crisis, and how has this experience affected their strategic development?

Method: We conduct an abductive study using combined data from interviews and a targeted archive search. The data are focused on the Swedish context and on a period of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Results: Three distinct groups of TPL providers have different sense and action processes impacting their business operations. This research shows how an understanding of servitisation is relevant for TPL theory. Finally, we develop the strategic perspective of TPL providers by defining TPL providers as value-cocreating relationships that can help manage the complexities of logistics services.

Conclusion: This research shows that TPL providers play an important role in crises, as they contribute to solving customer problems. This role appears to be strengthened during crises, but it imposes great demands on TPL providers.

Contribution: Third-party logistics providers work with their customers during crises. The sensemaking view emphasises the importance of personnel, organisational commitment, capacity and expectations during crises. This is an interplay that requires adaptation to short-term changes in operational processes and adaptability in long-term operations.

Supply chains can play a major role in reducing countries’ safety and security threats; the role of network responsiveness offers insights into management exchanges responding to the preparedness of developed countries like Sweden. Illustrating the managing of overall supply chain capabilities among network responsiveness stems from the supply chain responsiveness concept. Several challenges to responsiveness prevent actors’ networks from fully benefitting from coordination. A management approach is employed to explore the impact of network responsiveness on the supply chain as an overarching strategy for safety and security. The study suggests three different approaches which differ in their impact on the network’s responsiveness: (i) an overall strategic planning approach, (ii) one integrated system approach for the overall response, and (iii) a coordination approach for managing the overall supply chain responsiveness strategy.

Las cadenas de suministro pueden desempeñar un rol importante en la reducción de amenazas a la seguridad y protección de países desarrollados, como Suecia. Este articulo ofrece perspectivas acerca de la cadena de suministro y deriva del concepto de preparación para emergencias. Varios desafíos impiden que las redes de actores se beneficien plenamente de la coordinación. El estudio enfoca el impacto de las redes de actores en la cadena de suministro como una estrategia general para el manejo de la seguridad. Tres enfoques difieren en su impacto en la capacidad de las redes de actores envueltos; (i) un enfoque de planificación estratégica general, (ii) un enfoque de sistema integrado para la respuesta general, (iii) un enfoque de coordinación para gestionar la estrategia general de capacidad en respuesta a la cadena de suministro.

Voluntary networks are actors in civil society and central to the emergency preparedness efficiency of developed countries’. This study focuses on the voluntary defense networks in Sweden, a unique set of networks that contribute to the efficiency of emergency preparedness. Through interviews with experts in Swedish civil and military fields and their associated voluntary defense networks, as well as secondary data, we examined the coordination of these voluntary defense networks in practice. Although voluntary network coordination is highly associated with efficiency, in practice, most voluntary networks are not well coordinated. This study confirms that civil and military practitioners in developed countries, struggling with the coordination of voluntary networks are not isolated in their struggle; inattentive practices are indeed the norm. This article also establishes a course that civil and military practitioners can follow to improve emergency response efficiency.

Las redes voluntarias son actores de la sociedad civil e importantes para la eficiencia en la preparación de emergencia de los países desarrollados. Este estudio es sobre las redes de defensa voluntarias en Suecia, un conjunto único de redes voluntarias que contribuyen a la eficiencia de la preparación para emergencias. Las entrevistas con expertos en el campo civil y militar sueco y sus redes de defensa voluntarias asociadas y datos secundarios expusieron el examen de la coordinación de la red de defensa voluntaria en la práctica. La coordinación voluntaria de la red está significativamente asociada con la eficiencia, pero en la práctica, la mayoría de las redes voluntarias no están bien coordinadas. Si los profesionales civiles y militares de los países desarrollados están luchando con la coordinación de redes voluntarias, este estudio confirma que no son únicos en su lucha. La práctica indiferente es de hecho la norma. Los profesionales civiles y militares pueden seguir una ruta adecuada aquí establecida cuando se busca mejorar la eficiencia de la respuesta de emergencia.