Ann Oper Res DOI 10.1007/s10479-017-2549-5 APPLICATIONS OF OR IN DISASTER RELIEF OPERATIONS A systematic review of humanitarian operations, humanitarian logistics and humanitarian supply chain performance literature 2005 to 2016 Ruth Banomyong 1 · Paitoon Varadejsatitwong 1 · Richard Oloruntoba 2 © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2017 Abstract The purpose of this manuscript is to explore methodologies for conducting com- prehensive literature review. The manuscript objectives are twofold: one is to identify a suitable methodology for conducting comprehensive literature review and two is to enable the identification of main research themes and clusters obtained from the literature. The domain of humanitarian operations, logistics and supply chain performance is selected as the review context. The main strength of a systematic literature review from other styles of literature review is that it provides a much higher level of methodology to the process. It further provides a rapid comprehensive identification of main research themes and clusters as illustrated from the humanitarian operations and logistics performance domain. Keywords Systematic review · Humanitarian operations performance · Humanitarian logistics performance · Humanitarian supply chain peformance 1 Introduction A literature review is a critical analysis of the body of knowledge related to a specific topic or research question. Bell (1999) noted that a literature review provides the reader with a picture of the state of knowledge along with the main questions in the subject area which are being investigated. Clare and Hamilton (2003) stated that a literature review is an extensive critical B Ruth Banomyong ruth@banomyong.com Paitoon Varadejsatitwong varpaitoon@yahoo.com Richard Oloruntoba Richard.Oloruntoba@newcastle.edu.au 1 Thammasat Business School, Thammasat University, 2 Prachan Road, Pranakorn District, Bangkok 10200, Thailand 2 Newcastle Business School, The University of Newcastle, 1 University Drive, Callaghan, NSW 2324, Australia 123