Adoption of a Trackability Tool among Humanitarian Practitioners in Local Units : A Field Study on a Food Assistance Program in Colombia ; Införande av Spårbarhetssystem bland Humanitära Praktiker i Lokala Enheter : En Fältstudie av ett Livsmedelsbiståndsprogram i Colombia

Worldwide, the need for effective humanitarian aid is growing, and continuous aid such as commodity distribution plays a major role in ensuring sustained wellbeing. In literature, information and communication technology (ICT) has been recognized and suggested to enhance the performance and achieve higher social impact of humanitarian supply chains. Nevertheless, so far there has been little research on implementation practices and difficulties that can arise in the specific context. In pursuit of seizing the full benefits of ICT in humanitarian setting, there is an interest to further study ICT adoption among humanitarian practitioners, above all those in the most decentralized parts of the chain, which are more likely to be overlooked. This thesis aims to investigate what challenges arise when implementing an ICT trackability solution in local units of humanitarian supply chains. In this context, the concept of trackability was introduced to refer to monitoring of the downstream flow of a commodity until its intended beneficiary. Based on a thorough literature review at the intersection of Humanitarian Logistics, Supply Chain Visibility and ICT Adoption research, a substantiated theoretical context was built. Further, a case study on Colombian childcare centers, which serve as local service units of a national Food Aid Program aimed at early childhood, allowed for deep-going insights on the work of educators and the dynamics of such local humanitarian entities. Analysis of the empirical findings demonstrated the presence of numerous, both facilitating and inhibiting, ICT adoption antecedents. Five main challenges were identified: high workload, lack of technological skills, staff’s impact-oriented motivation in contrast to the tool’s broader efficiency goal, trackabilitiy’s monitoring nature as a threat to staff’s aspired autonomy, and deficient infrastructure. The study shows that these challenges can be interpreted as misalignments between the nature of attributes intrinsic to the humanitarian organization ...