| Humanitarian logistics challenges confronting actors in Africa continues to affect the relief operations in the continent thereby calling for donors,inter-sectorial collaboration efforts,and technology employments in addressing such issues.Although it is known that addressing relief operation efforts actors play a role in solving it associated problems such as financial,technological,human resource capacity,and other long-term sustainability issues that hampers efforts tailored towards elevating and developing disaster affected communities,businesses,government,and non-government organizations in Africa.There is little known on how both humanitarian and business logistics organizations operating in English speaking African countries can collaboratively utilised their resources and expertise under a digital business ecosystem platform to meet the pressing humanitarian logistics challenges in Africa.The aim of this study was to conceptually propose and develop a humanitarian logistics digital business ecosystem(HLDBE)platform and numerically examine it from perspectives of English speaking African countries humanitarian logistics and business logistics organizations decision-makers their propensity to use,diffuse,and adopt the proposed platform for their future operations.Developing the conceptual framework derived from the likely use,diffusion,and adoption of HLDBE,three diffusion and adoption theories(thus,Diffusion of Innovation;Technology-Organisation-Environment framework;Institution Theory)were employed to numerically examine the perceived interest of senior executives.The objective data were obtained from an online survey research approach and analysed with Partial Least Square Structural Equational Modelling(PLS-SEM)multivariate statistics method.The analysis demonstrated that senior-executives working in the humanitarian logistics and business logistics entity in English speaking African countries are willing to use,adopt,and diffuse the proposed HLDBE platform when in its inception to address the humanitarian logistics challenges in the continent.The study also,shows that perceived relative advantage,perceived compatibility(thus,a diffusion of innovation theory constructs),and normative pressure(an institutional theory construct)were statistically significant and also outlines decision-makers perception that the future use,diffuse,and adoption HLDBE for their operations would encourage them in their expansion of new humanitarian logistics/ business logistics services.Additionally,the findings also indicates that senior executives propensity to employ and collaborate in a digital business logistics ecosystem may depend on how the proposed platform's is developed,thus,ensuring that the platform is consistent with their organizations belief,values,and business strategy.A co-value creation strategy tailored towards their future growth and ability that also aid them to capture and promote their interest in meeting the agenda 2063 set by the African Union.Concurrently,the obtained results also stressed on the influence policy-makers,industrial associations and professional bodies may play in coercing members to use,diffuse,and adopt a new collaborative digital ecosystem platform when it is in use.This study serves as a plausible theoretical framework to predict the perceived interest of Executives in the humanitarian organisations and business logistics companies' propensity to use,diffuse,and adopt HLDBE for their future sustainable operational use in Africa.Stakeholder's benefits are outline therein.IPMA is also employed to aid managers on factors to improve.Implications,limitations,and future research direction are also proposed. |
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