PATHWAYS OUT OF DISASTER [research]

As the world faces disasters of increasing magnitude, Alfonso Pedraza-Martinez’s research employs humanitarian logistics to find solutions.

It’s not unusual for the rainy season in Bogotá, Colombia, to deluge the South American country’s populous capital with heavy storms and flooding. The Bogotá River basin, where millions of people reside, has historically coped with these rains thanks to lush wetlands, which not only support diverse wildlife but also act as a sponge to absorb excess rainfall. 

That is, until the second half of the 20th century. Due to rapid urbanization and pollution, the wetland ecosystem decreased from 50,000 hectares in 1950 to a meager 1,000 in 2009. 

The loss of these wetlands has not only devastated wildlife populations, but has enabled the heavy rains to submerge croplands in floodwater and wash away entire neighborhoods, killing hundreds and leaving thousands homeless over the years. In response, the Colombian government introduced several projects to restore the wetlands, reduce flood risk, rebuild infrastructure and assist inhabitants with shelter and other public services. 

One government worker tasked with providing social welfare services to flood-affected citizens experiencing extreme poverty was Alfonso Pedraza-Martinez, an industrial engineer who used this experience to shape an academic career in humanitarian operations and disaster management.

“My office was in charge of coordinating welfare services with both private subcontractors and government providers,” said Pedraza-Martinez, the Greg and Patty Fox Collegiate Professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations and the director of the Humanitarian Operations (HOPE) Lab at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business. “Some of the people we served were homeless and needed shelter, some needed food, some needed school for their children. I became very curious about what was behind coordinating all these dynamics and realized I needed to go into academia to get a deeper understanding of these complex operations.”

At the time, humanitarian logistics was a relatively new academic discipline. Pedraza-Martinez sought out Luk Van Wassenhove, one of the leading scholars in the area, and attended the Institut Européen d’Administration des Affaires (INSEAD), a global business school based in France and Singapore. While working toward his doctorate, he continued to untangle the threads ensnaring disaster management that he first discovered in Bogotá. 

This time, though, most of his attention was focused on African nations where he researched last-mile delivery of humanitarian services. Working with organizations in the Red Cross movement as well as the United Nations, he contributed to the then-scarce research on field vehicle fleet management in humanitarian operations.

His study, “Field Vehicle Fleet Management in Humanitarian Operations: A Case-based Approach,” published in Journal of Operations Management, was the first of its kind on humanitarian logistics. It helped to shape understanding of how international humanitarian operations manage ground transportation and laid the foundation for future research. 

Since then, the field of humanitarian logistics has continued to grow. Pedraza-Martinez now researches disasters and organizations in the U.S. and Canada as well as in Africa, Latin America and throughout the rest of the Global South. 

“Business schools are taking an interest in better understanding how disasters work, how humanitarian operations work, and how they can educate their students to be able to be successful professionals in a world where disasters are more and more impactful and commercial firms face more disruptions in their global supply chains,” he said. 

In addition to vehicle fleet management, he has studied humanitarian funding and donor markets, volunteer management, water management in sub-Saharan Africa, information management during crises and the consequences of operating in areas during armed conflict. He is also beginning to delve further into the environmental impact on operations related to climate change.

“What I study are the unique characteristics of humanitarian operations that differ from commercial operations,” said Pedraza-Martinez. 

For example, the humanitarian context greatly differs because organizations operating within this realm do not adhere to standard market principles, instead relying on donations rather than revenue. Unlike customers, donors pay for services they do not receive, which creates some unique tension in terms of how society and human nature often interact. 

“In general, we humans try to have as much control as we can over how our donations are going to be used. Basically, we want to donate to a specific cause because that gives us personal satisfaction,” he explained. “But the problem is that those donations for specific purposes, meaning earmark donations, sometimes have negative effects on the operational performance of organizations.” 

Another complicated aspect that intrigues Pedraza-Martinez is how to fund the entire disaster management cycle even after a crisis stops receiving media attention. 

“If you want to respond to disasters quickly, then you need to be very close to the disaster area. But being very close is expensive because you need facilities, offices, warehouses and more inventory,” he said. “And that’s fine for disaster response, but the minute that public attention goes away from that disaster response, funding and donations also go down. So then you will be left very spread out and decentralized with a lot of overhead cost. And you will go broke.” 

Linking academic insights with practical applications can be a challenge for any field of research, but for one that is deliberately responding to disasters it is especially paramount that academics and practitioners are in communication with each other. For Pedraza-Martinez, this has made working with collaborators in the field a crucial part of his research. 

“I try to go the extra mile to write pieces that appeal to humanitarian practitioners,” he said, sharing that he was delighted that practitioners have approached him after coming across papers he’s written that were promoted on social media platforms such as LinkedIn. “I make an effort to change the message into a language that they can understand so they can relate to it and make decisions. I also collaborate with organizations so that I can work with them directly to show them the results of my research.” 

For a recent study, he collaborated with the Canadian Red Cross (CRC) to collect and analyze Twitter data on the disaster response to the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire in Alberta, Canada. Thanks to the collaboration, he and the research team were able to access the entirety of CRC Alberta’s Twitter account, including audience engagement. This enabled them to identify when and how disaster victims were able to engage with the messages. With this detailed analysis, the study ultimately contradicted existing crisis communication theory and posed an improved strategy for using social media during wildfires and other natural disasters. 

“For organizations that are constantly reacting, taking the time to reflect on what they’re doing is very valuable, and we provide that space,” Pedraza-Martinez said, adding that it’s not only the outcome of the research that can be useful to an organization. “The conversations with academics provide moments where they can reflect on what they’re doing, why they’re doing it and how they can do it better.”

He also emphasized that it’s important not to approach a humanitarian organization the same way a researcher would approach a traditional business. “Most of the research we do in business schools is to solve problems, but we need to be able to deliver a message on how to improve things without making them look like they are not performing their mission well. Most organizations are doing incredibly well with the resources they have in a very challenging operating environment.”

Despite the inherent differences between humanitarian organizations and commercial businesses, business schools and MBA students are particularly well suited to study humanitarian logistics, Pedraza-Martinez explained. 

“For businesses that operate globally or are exposed to global risks, there is an opportunity to learn from humanitarian operations,” he said. “Humanitarian organizations run global supply chains that must source from somewhere in the globe and then take their products and services somewhere else, in many cases to very remote areas. They deal with huge uncertainties in terms of access to suppliers, and the way they manage risk has been refined for over 100 years.”

This has become especially relevant in the years since the COVID-19 pandemic caused unparalleled supply chain disruptions. “It is apparent to many business schools that they should have a better understanding of supply chain disruptions that come from disasters, not just because they may suffer the effect of the disaster, but also because their suppliers and their customers may be affected,” he said. “And with supply chains spread across the globe, something that may happen in China or Vietnam or Mexico may have a huge impact on the ability of domestic companies in the United States to sell or even manufacture a product.”

Businesses are often also the suppliers of products and services for humanitarian response, which is something Pedraza-Martinez observed early on while dealing with the flooding disasters in Bogotá. “In many cases, the prices that private companies can offer to the organizations and victims of disasters may be more favorable than the ones that those organizations and victims will be able to get by themselves,” he said.

Further, humanitarian organizations are more likely to operate in parts of the world where climate change already has a significant impact on communities. Therefore, business leaders can better understand and prepare for the consequences of climate change by studying these organizations. 

“Some people may say there is no climate change or there are no more disasters than previously. But what is a fact is that there are more people on the planet. So either way, disasters are going to affect more people,” he added.

Given Notre Dame’s dedication to humanitarian action and peace studies, Mendoza is a particularly apt fit for Pedraza-Martinez, who teaches both MBA and Ph.D. students. Additionally, he provides the Meyer Business on the Frontlines Program with tools and knowledge to assist with project analyses. The program is especially relevant to his research as it is designed for MBA students to use business skills to address humanitarian concerns such as poverty, violence, economic exclusion and infrastructure issues. 

Going forward, Pedraza-Martinez is eager to continue collaborating with students, co-authors and humanitarian organizations. And he’s eager to see how business schools continue to respond to global disasters. 

“Businesses have a natural social component because they answer social needs. And one of those social needs is the response to disasters,” he said.

Illustration by Errata Carmona. Photo by Barbara Johnston.

Alfonso Pedraza-Martinez received the 2022 Luk Van Wassenhove Career Award from the European Working Group on Humanitarian Operations. He has edited special issues at Production and Operations Management, the Journal of Operations Management, and the European Journal of Operational Research. He is a former president of the College of Humanitarian Operations and Crisis Management at the Production and Operations Management Society.

Alfonso Pedraza-Martinez is the Greg and Patty Fox Collegiate Professor of IT, Analytics, and Operations and the director of the Humanitarian Operations (HOPE) Lab.
Published
“Speak with One Voice? Examining Content Coordination and Social Media Engagement During Disasters”
Information Systems Research
Co-authors: Changseung Yoo (McGill University), Eunae Yoo (Indiana University), Lu (Lucy) Yan (Indiana University), Alfonso Pedraza-Martinez (University of Notre Dame)