Managing pandemics: A POM perspective and directions for future research

Abstract

COVID‐19 pandemic has revealed how unprepared operations and supply chain professionals are for “abnormal” conditions. Understanding how the production and operations management field can affect the trajectory and especially the remediation of pandemics is a critical, but understudied, area of research from descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive perspectives. Fourteen research articles in this special issue have attempted to fill this gap with rigor. We first summarize these articles in six categories, (1) public policies and government interventions, (2) hospital capacity, (3) propagation of pandemics, (4) humanitarian operations, (5) private partnerships, and (6) vaccine production, by drawing out the themes addressed. As we look ahead at pandemics yet to come, we note there is still much research needed and conclude by discussing emergent interest in promising themes for studying pre‐pandemic, during pandemic, and post‐pandemic operations.

Migrant flows: Humanitarian operational aspects of people in transit

“…To respond to these negative impacts, NGOs and other humanitarian agents need to quickly adapt their traditional long‐term development support to help migrants transit back to their home villages. Research indicates the value of negotiations between pharmaceutical firms, suppliers, and governments (Anderson et al., 2023); similarly, negotiations and collaboration between NGOs and governments would be of value in delivering services, especially within informal networks (Jónasson et al., 2022).…”