Covid-19 Disaster relief projects management: an exploratory study of critical success factors

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented socio-economic devastation. With widespread displacement of population/ migrants, considerable destruction of property, increase in mortality, morbidity, and poverty, infectious disease outbreaks and epidemics have become global threats requiring a collective response. Project Management is, however, a relatively less explored discipline in the Third Sector, particularly in the domain of humanitarian assistance or exploratory projects. Via a systematic literature review and experts' interviews, this paper explores the essence of humanitarian projects in terms of the challenges encountered and the factors that facilitate or hinder project success during crises like Covid-19. Additionally, the general application of project management in international assistance projects is analysed to determine how project management can contribute to keeping the project orientation humane during a crisis. The analysis reveals that applying project management tools and techniques are beneficial to achieve success in humanitarian assistance projects. However, capturing, codifying, and disseminating the knowledge generated in the process and placing the end-users at the centre of the project life cycle is a prerequisite. While the latter can seem obvious, the findings demonstrate that the inadequate inclusion of beneficiaries is one of the main reasons that prevent positive project outcomes leading to unsustainable outcomes. The key finding of this paper is that the lack of human-centred approaches in project management for humanitarian assistance and development projects is the main reason such projects fail to achieve desired outcomes.submittedVersionpublishedVersio

Paradox of Strategic Partnerships for Sustainable Value Chains: Perspectives of Not-for-Profit Actors

The study explores strategic partnerships themes for Sustainable Agricultural Value chains (SAVC) dimensions. Acknowledging the role of stakeholders, business and Not-for-Profit actors, and their engagement in such partnerships, this study focuses on the latter’s perspective. Literature review followed by five exploratory case studies are used to examine SAVC partnership themes. The study identifies three themes influencing strategic partnerships: the interaction between partners through cooperation, coordination, and collaboration; management of information flow between partners; and product flow management with demand-supply coordination between partners. The level of information sharing between partners also influences SAVC value creation. The findings extend value chain literature by stressing the theoretical association between the identified antecedents and partnership in the sustainability value chain in general and the SAVC in particular. The exploratory case studies provide real-life perspectives and a practical framework in the context of SAVC. Managers, policymakers and international funded programmes can also benefit from the current key findings and the new framework as a referential basis to form a partnership strategy in agricultural sectors. This research suggests a further test for the conceptual framework using large-scale surveys in diverse geographic contexts and looking at trans-border value chain partnerships, especially in different country contexts that influence sustainable development and partnerships in SAVC.publishedVersio

Implementing Industry 4.0 in the Manufacturing Sector: Circular Economy as a societal solution

The fourth industrial revolution, Industry 4.0 (I4.0), has disrupted the notions of economic transactions, value generation and appropriation to become a central interest among academics and practitioners. I4.0 is predicted to create new frontiers for society’s sustainable growth by encouraging the development of a circular economy. However, significant obstacles prevent its widespread application. Therefore, this research investigates the broader social problems associated with the implementation of I4.0 and the potential solutions. The research takes the form of a comprehensive and systematic literature review that uses bibliometric analysis to consider papers published between 2011 and 2020. Fifty-two research articles from 32 different journals were thoroughly reviewed to fulfil the research objective. This innovative and novel study explores I4.0 technologies in terms of the potential to solve societal problems, the associated social challenges they present and the related opportunities. The paper concludes by discussing possible future research directions.publishedVersio