Paul D. Larson

Paul D. Larson, Ph.D., was Head of the SCM Department and Director of the Transport Institute from 2005 to 2011. As Director, he was the principal investigator on a five-year, $1,000,000 research grant from the Province of Manitoba. From 2006-2007, Paul was the principal investigator on a $200,000 pandemic planning project, led by the late Dr. Allister Hickson. That project yielded the 2008 report: Manitoba Nutrition Supply in Event of a Pandemic – and inspired Larson’s Supply Chain Risk Evaluation and Management (SCREAM) framework. From 2006 to 2009, he led a curriculum development team, creating the new C.P.P. accreditation program for the Purchasing Management Association of Canada (PMAC), which has since merged with Supply Chain Logistics Canada to become Supply Chain Canada. This project brought $300,000 to the department and its members. The Arizona-based Institute for Supply Management (ISM), under its former name, National Association of Purchasing Management (NAPM), funded Dr. Larson’s doctoral dissertation, which earned the 1991 Academy of Marketing Science/Alpha Kappa Psi award. Dr. Larson has published more than 60 articles in leading logistics and related journals, and has made numerous presentations at academic and practitioner conferences. In 2012, working with the Greater Toronto Leadership Project, he wrote Supplier Diversity in the GTA: Business Case and Best Practices. Four years later, Larson was lead researcher and author of a report titled Supplier Diversity in Canada: Research and Analysis of the Next Step in Diversity and Inclusion for Forward-Looking Organizations. This report was published in 2016 by the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion (CCDI). During 2020-2021, he led a research project with WBE Canada, which has yielded two additional reports on supplier diversity: The State of WBE Certification in Canada and The State of Supplier Diversity Programs in Canada: The Buyers’ Perspective.

Dr. Larson serves on the Editorial Review Boards of the Journal of Business Logistics, Journal of Supply Chain Management, International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management, and the Journal of Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Management. Dr. Larson’s current research interests are supplier diversity, supply chain sustainability, and supply chain risk management, with special reference to the COVID-19 pandemic.

From 1979 to 1981, Dr. Larson worked with the Ministry of Cooperatives in Fiji, as a United States Peace Corps Volunteer. More recently, he has been on short-term aid missions to Colombia, Haiti, Tanzania, and Trinidad & Tobago. In early February 2012, as a member of the CARE Canada Kilimanjaro expedition, and again in February 2017, he stood at Uhuru peak, Tanzania, the highest point in Africa.

Larson, Paul D., Robert V. Parsons, Arne Elias and Bengu Yesiltas (2022), Public Transit and Active Transportation: Activity, Structural and Energy Efficiency Effects on Mobility and the Environment, Knowledge Synthesis Grant Final Report, SSHRC and Infrastructure Canada, January 17, 40 pages.

Larson, Paul D. (2021), “Relationships Between Logistics Performance and Aspects of Sustainability: A cross-Country Analysis,” Sustainability, 13(2), 623. 

Larson, Paul D. (2020), “Food Distribution During a Pandemic: A Tale of Two Supply Chains,” Ch. 26 in COVID-19 in Manitoba: Public Policy Responses to the First Wave, Karine Levasseur and Andrea Rounce, editors, University of Manitoba Press, Winnipeg, 219-225. 

Larson, Paul D., Kulchitsky, Jack D., Pencak, Silvia, (2021), The State of WBE Certification in Canada. The Suppliers’ Perspective, WBE Canada.

Larson, Paul D. (2021), "Security, Sustainability and Supply Chain Collaboration in the Humanitarian Space", Journal of Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Management.

Larson, Paul D. (2020), “Is Just-in-Time Out of Time?”, Inside Logistics, June, p. 13.

Larson, Paul D. (2020), “Supply Chain Risk Evaluation and Management in the Age of Covid-19,” Supply Professional, June, pp. 20-21.

Larson, Paul D. & Natalie M. Larson (2019), “The Hunger of Nations: An Empirical Study of Interrelationships among the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),” Journal of Sustainable Development, 12(6), 39-47.

Larson, Paul D. (2019), “Corruption, Gender Inequality and Logistics Performance,” International Journal of Logistics Management, 31(2), 381-397.

Larson, Paul D. & Cyril Foropon (2018), “Process Improvement in Humanitarian Operations: An Organizational Theory Perspective,” International Journal of Production Research, 56(21), 6828-6841.

Larson, Paul D., Cathy Gallagher-Louisy and Laura Armenio (2016), Supplier Diversity in Canada: Research and Analysis of the Next Step in Diversity and Inclusion for Forward-Looking Organizations, Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion/University of Manitoba, 48 pages.

Larson, Paul D. (2012), Supplier Diversity in the GTA: Business Case and Best Practices, DiverseCity – The Greater Toronto Leadership Project, November, 38 pages.