Public-private perspectives on supply chains of essential goods in crisis management

Public authorities are responsible to maintain the population’s supply with essential goods like food or drugs at any time. Such goods are produced, transported and sold by companies in supply chains. Past supply crises all over the world have showcased numerous examples of spontaneous collaboration between public authorities and companies in supply chains. However, insights on formal collaboration which is agreed upon in the preparedness phase is rare in both practice and literature.

Therefore, this dissertation’s first research objective is to identify under which circumstances companies are most willing to collaborate with public authorities. In this context, public authorities' and companies' characteristics, resources and roles in a collaboration are identified from literature research as well as real-life cases in Study A. Study B empirically determines companies' preferred preconditions for collaboration: Companies value the continuity of their business processes and expect to be compensated monetarily or by lifted restrictions.
The second research objective is to develop collaborative supply chain concepts and evaluate them from public and private perspectives. ... mehrStudy C develops a collaboration concept in a real-time setting in which commercial trucks are jointly re-routed into crisis regions. In Study D, public authorities coordinate tactical use of commercial last-mile delivery vehicles for the home supply with food and drugs. In Study E, strategic collaboration in using dual-use warehouses is investigated with a focus on logistics networks. Study F determines the impact of demand shortfalls and payment term extensions on financial and physical flows in food supply chains. In Studies C-F, the main drivers for effectiveness and efficiency are investigated.

By examining collaboration between companies and public authorities in supply crises, this dissertation contributes to the research streams of supply chain risk management and so-called extreme supply chain management. The results provide public decision-makers with insights into companies' motivation to engage in public crisis management. The developed collaborative supply chain concepts serve public authorities as a basis for collaboration design and companies as starting points for integrating public-private collaboration into their endeavors to make supply chains more resilient.