Journal of Business Logistics最新文献

Thanks to increased technological advancements, retailers have progressively incorporated crowdsourcing into their delivery service portfolios to offer customers an enhanced last-mile delivery experience. Yet, while studies have explored the unique operational attributes of the crowdsourced delivery (CD) model in online retailing, the literature remains scant on how customers respond to the usage of this emerging delivery service. Building on the cognitive appraisal theory and e-Logistics Service Quality (e-LSQ) literatures, this study applies middle-range theorizing to examine differences between customers' appraisals of e-LSQ dimensions of CD and traditional delivery methods, and what types of products being delivered make such differences more pronounced. Our analysis of a large sample of customers' reviews across multiple retailers reveals that customers exhibit higher appraisal levels of timeliness, price, and reliability of delivery services when CD is used. Results also indicate that appraisals are more pronounced for timeliness and price of deliveries of high-turnover products that require minimal time and effort to purchase. Our findings, as such, underscore the power of CD as a tool to enhance customer experience and unveil potential opportunities for effective CD use in customer segmentation strategies.

Frontline employees (FLEs) are the face of every organization in the supply chain, and therefore, supply chain partners understand each other's environmental values through these interactions. An environmental orientation conveys a firm's commitment to the natural environment to both internal and external stakeholders along the supply chain. Building upon social identity theory within a boundary-spanning perspective, we estimate a model which examines how this firm-level orientation leads to FLE's environmental identification. These FLEs work harder and are more satisfied at higher levels of identification, which ultimately translates to perceptions of higher-quality products and prosocial impact. FLE's perceptions of ethical leadership and trust in their organization moderate this serial mediation model. Together, we provide insights into the benefits of frontline employees who identify with an environmental organization.

Effective supply chain management (SCM) capabilities are critical to the success of organizations. Although research over the past three decades (i) firmly establishes that SCM plays a significant role in corporate strategy, (ii) either suggests and/or finds strong positive results for the impact of different types of SCM capabilities on firm performance, and (iii) indicates that intra-firm and inter-firm capabilities are central to the effectiveness of SCM, how firms come to have the SCM capabilities stays somewhat underexplored. Therefore, to understand how firms can bundle effective SCM capabilities, we (i) develop a brief overview of capabilities research, (ii) use the subprocesses of capability bundling—stabilizing (building), enriching (developing), and pioneering (creating)—as a framework for reviewing SCM research, (iii) review 236 articles from 66 journals to develop an integrative framework of capability bundling for SCM effectiveness, (iv) discuss the findings from the review for SCM capability bundling, and (v) delineate a comprehensive research agenda that provides specific insights into how firms can come to have SCM capabilities for competitive advantages in the marketplace. In doing so, we hope to initiate a silo-breaking, cross-disciplinary research program on how firms bundle capabilities for competitive advantages.

Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) populations often lack access to the products and markets that would allow progress toward sustainable development goals (SDGs) (Prahalad & Hart, Strategy + Business, 2002, 26 and 1). Recognizing the fundamental role of logistics/supply chain management (LSCM) in providing such access, we review 84 case studies of development initiatives targeted at the BOP. Surprisingly, we find that LSCM has low visibility in most cases, although distribution is frequently mentioned and LSCM is a more central actor in the few cases where BOP locations are a source for low-cost products.

While services represent the largest sector of the global economy, 86.8% in the United States, most supply chain management (SCM) research is focused on product flows. Executives in manufacturing firms have benefited from frameworks created to implement SCM processes, but this is not the case for their counterparts in service companies. The two most cited SCM frameworks for services have methodological and conceptual deficiencies. Drawing upon the service-dominant logic of marketing and using an empirical research approach, we developed supply chain structure maps for nine service firms. Our findings indicate that the supply chain structure maps of service companies are comparable to those in the product-based literature, which supports the service-dominant logic. Then, we identified the six key processes that constitute a framework to manage service supply chains. The customer relationship management and the supplier relationship management processes form the critical links in the supply chain, and the other four processes are coordinated through this linkage. The SCM framework for services provides direction for executives in service firms who need to increase cross-functional integration within their firms and with other members of the supply chain. For academics, 12 avenues for future research are identified.

Buy-online-pickup-instore (BOPIS) services have become an increasingly important part of a retailer's omnichannel strategy. When service failures (e.g., stock-out) occur, consumers may resort to negative word-ofmouth (NWOM) to share their evaluation of the retailer's BOPIS service. While a retailer's service recovery policies (e.g., cross-channel substitution) may help to fulfill its service intent, the extent to which these two signals can improve consumer satisfaction and diminish their NWOM intent remains unknown. Drawing from both service recovery literature and signaling theory, we conducted a series of five experiments and find that the intradimensional congruity of the signal set communicated by the retailer during its BOPIS service process depends on both its operational capability and the consumer's own predilection regarding the product category. These insights collectively indicate that while a retailer's operations need to support service policies to provide a congruous BOPIS service process, substitution policies offered to consumers during the transaction need to consider the extent to which a consumer's purchase decision is hedonic or utilitarian. In turn, this finding suggests that a retailer's category management needs to consider BOPIS substitution in terms of both product assortment and inventory policies.

This study examines the impacts of consumer confidence on stockpiling behavior and, subsequently, retail inventory management. We show how stockpiling behavior evolved during the “Great Recession” of 2008–2009 as consumer confidence waned and demonstrate the impact of this development on inventory management. Drawing on the two-segment household inventory theory consisting of nonstockpiling and stockpiling segments, we use a panel dataset (2005–2015) to calibrate household inventory holdings. This dataset then serves as input for a retailer-level case study. Our empirical analysis reveals significant impacts from changing stockpiling behavior. When consumer confidence is low, both stockpiling and nonstockpiling segments respond by reducing weekly consumption rates; however, the stockpiling segment also significantly lengthens the time between shopping trips, and ultimately increases the duration of inventory holdings. These changes to consumption and stockpiling add complexity to inventory planning, requiring retailers to carefully adjust inventory levels to maintain service levels.

A plastic response is a type of resilient response to disruption whereby a supply chain is significantly redesigned. This is in contrast to the most common responses to disruption emphasized in the extant resilience literature, in which restoration of a supply chain to its pre-disruption state is typically the focus. Researching plastic responses is important because they differ greatly from restoration. A plastic response is a new way to operate, thus requiring implementation of major changes to the supply chain. Accordingly, a foundational premise is adopted to characterize a plastic response as (1) a significant redesign, (2) due to a pressing need, (3) requiring most or all of the following: acquisition of new skills, investment in new assets and leadership support, (4) a permanent new way to operate. Additionally, eight propositions are offered to serve as bases for further research. These relate to two fundamental issues: when are plastic responses most likely to be exercised and how to enable plastic responses. The propositions were developed through qualitative data analysis and informed by change management theory. The data were collected from in-depth interviews with global corporations in a variety of industries. Theoretical contributions and managerial implications are offered at the end.

The last-mile problem presents a daunting challenge for many logistics service providers, especially some 7000 small, localized operations for whom the cost of complex software solutions is often prohibitive. As a result, last-mile dispatchers rely on simple heuristics to ensure adequate customer service at an acceptable cost. This research effort extends prior qualitative work by developing and testing a simple vehicle routing heuristic, based on behaviors observed in practice, that prioritizes customer service over cost against other simple vehicle routing heuristics across a variety of environments using simulation. The results support the inclusion of a customer service focus in vehicle routing and the addition of such heuristics to existing algorithm portfolios, specifically in urban areas with well-developed highway systems.