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Our annual surveys seek to provide insight into important market dynamics, opportunities and problems in the North American third party logistics (3PL) industry, from the perspective of the chief executive officers (CEOs) of major logistics service companies. The information generated is not only useful to managers considering using such services, but also to provider CEOs to facilitate industry benchmarking.

For the past decade, that insight has been sought by conducting annual surveys of the CEOs of many of the largest 3PL companies serving North America.

The CEOs projected substantial revenue growth in the North American 3PL marketplace over the next three years. Their companies are becoming increasingly customer selective, and aggressively selling along customer supply chains. They are increasingly focusing attention on the possible large‐scale adoption of RFID technology in the industry, and seeking ways to overcome industry pricing pressures.

This survey focused on the largest 3PL companies operating in North America. However, many small‐medium size companies now participate in that market, and little work has been done to document developments in that sector of the industry. Further, little research has been conducted concerning the provision and use of 3PL services in other geographies.

As previously noted, the findings not only give insight into the industry for those considering the use of 3PL services, but also give provider CEO a means of benchmarking their companies against industry averages.

Data generated in this survey provide a basis for comparison with that generated in our previous annual surveys, and an understanding of current 3PL market conditions.

The paper is aimed at modelling time varying betas via a state space representation in order to decompose the marginal contribution to risk of downside and upside deviations of asset returns in portfolio optimisation.

The approach enables to take into account the relationship between risk and excess returns in up‐side and down‐side markets and to arrange a flexible asset allocation model which directly incorporates the investor risk tolerance to positive or negative expected market moves. The model volatility through state space models and the Kalman filter, widely used to recursively and optimally estimate time varying betas.

The study shows that the application of an asset allocation model which splits beta in two parts, one related to Bear and the other to Bull markets, and reconciles them with a non negative risk aversion parameter may produce interesting financial results if compared with typical passive portfolios. The proposed model was tested by conducting extensive empirical evaluations on a set securities belonging to eight different markets. The outcomes show that active strategies can be developed and can lead to better performances.

The research affects optimisation models in particular considering the volatility indicators usually estimated not only by researchers but also by practitioners.

In financial literature we find empirical evidence that the constant beta model may be inaccurate and hazardous to use in asset allocation decisions and many statistical techniques have been developed to estimate time dependent betas. Rolling regression procedures allow to capture beta dynamics but require the definition of the estimation period. The paper provides an empirical analysis referred both to European and American market data which let us to allocate assets avoiding the usual limits of standard volatility indicators.

This issue is a selected bibliography covering the subject of leadership.

This chapter proposes a research model with the potential to solve the pressing problem of the underrepresentation of Blacks in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The underrepresentation problem can be addressed at two points. The first being the graduation point where Blacks are significantly underrepresented among STEM graduates. According to 2016 NSF data, Blacks were awarded just 6.2% of US STEM degrees. This was a 16% decrease from 2004 levels. The second point is the STEM work environments is an employment climate perceived as unwelcoming for Blacks which often leads to higher attrition of mainly Black males, but Black females are affected as well. This chapter deals only with the intervention strategies that will address the underrepresentation of Black students among STEM graduates.

The need for effective STEM education interventions aimed at improving academic outcomes for Black students in STEM has been articulated by many. This chapter explores how the NIH's model of translational research can be applied to the development of interventions aimed at improving the academic outcomes of Black STEM students. Using the principles of translational research, the authors of this chapter report how they had developed a STEM teaching and assessment intervention that resulted in improving the Introductory Biology scores in one section at a historically Black college and university (HBCU) to a 72% average compared to the 50% average of all the other peer sections. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the requirements for a solutions approach to the pressing problem of the underrepresentation of Blacks in STEM fields.

The need for increased flexibility in responding to market demand is driving a heightened interest in virtual, or agile organizations. However, agile response in the supply chain may not always be necessary and may not always be a better alternative than more traditional organizational structures. The model proposed in this paper provides a means of measuring both the need for agility and how agile an organization actually is. This is accomplished through the use of a hierarchical model that details with increasing specificity sources and levels of variance in the supply chain. As the ability to control specified variances increase, the need for agility decreases.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the customer partnering behavior dimensions – operational information exchange, planning, sharing of benefits and burdens, and extendedness – influence goal achievement and goal exceedance at the interface between customer firms and their logistics service providers.

This research develops a conceptual model of relationships between the customer partnering dimensions and logistics outsourcing performance (goal achievement and goal exceedance). The model is then tested using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The results indicate that sharing of benefits and burdens has no significant effect on performance, while the other partnering dimensions positively influence goal achievement and goal exceedance. Amongst these partnering dimensions, extendedness demonstrates the strongest effect on both performance dimensions. Furthermore, operational information exchange primarily influences goal exceedance, while planning primarily impacts goal achievement.

The paper extends the extant logistics outsourcing literature by examining the effects of established customer partnering dimensions on performance.

Organizations have changed over the past several decades with regard to the structuring of work methods and processes. Moving away from the traditional hierarchical design, most organizations are developing flatter, leaner structures that support a more empowered, team‐based workforce. The nature of leadership has also changed significantly over time. Building on the body of work that has been done to understand leadership, the current paper explores the various theories of leadership and how these theories have changed over time. Starting with a review of work done on leadership, the trends and changes over time are discussed. In addition, characteristics of successful leaders are identified. Given current developments in organizations, a call for change is presented in the context of teams and team leadership. A modified view of leadership is proposed that may be more appropriate in team‐based structures.

This paper provides a comparison of users and providers of third‐party logistics (3PL) services with respect to relationship marketing elements, such as trust and communication, as well as relationship marketing outcomes, such as retention and recovery.

Constructs for the relationship marketing elements and outcomes were derived from the extant literature and modified to reflect the nature of 3PL arrangements. The relevant data were collected from separate, but consistent, mail surveys that were sent to users of 3PL services as well as providers of 3PL services.

The results indicate statistically significant differences between 3PL users and providers across eight of nine relationship marketing elements, with the lone non‐significant comparison involving the communication construct. There are also statistically significant differences between 3PL users and providers for each of the four relationship marketing outcomes.

Although the present study utilized previously validated relationship marketing elements and outcomes, future research could examine other relationship marketing elements and outcomes. Future research could also investigate relationship marketing issues through dyads/matched pairs of 3PL users and providers.

This manuscript examines 3PL with respect to theories and/or frameworks that comes from outside the logistics discipline, an approach advocated by Stock. Moreover, the paper adds to Moore's 3PL/relationship marketing research by investigating relationship elements and outcomes. The current paper adds to the rather limited literature that incorporates both 3PL user and provider perspectives.

This paper aims to explore the impact of fourth-party logistics (4PL) adoption on the agility, adaptability and alignment (AAA) capabilities within humanitarian supply chains (HSCs).

Semi-structured interviews with individuals from a large non-government organisation were combined with secondary data to assess the influence of 4PL adoption on AAA capabilities in HSCs.

The results indicate that HSCs exhibit some of the AAA antecedents but not all are fully realised. While 4PL positively affects the AAA capabilities of HSCs, its adoption faces challenges such as the funding environment, data security/confidentiality and alignment with humanitarian principles. The study suggests an AAA antecedent realignment, positioning alignment as a precursor to agility and adaptability. It also identifies three core antecedents in HSCs: flexibility, speed and environmental uncertainty.

The study shows the positive impact 4PL adoption can have on the AAA capabilities of HSCs. The findings have practical relevance for those wishing to optimise HSC performance through 4PL adoption, by identifying the inhibiting factors to its adoption as well as strategies to address them.

This research empirically explores 4PL’s impact on AAA capabilities in HSCs, highlighting the facilitating and hindering factors of 4PL adoption in this environment as well as endorsing a realignment of AAA antecedents. It also contributes to the growing research on SC operations in volatile settings.