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Discussion of security in supply chains has been intensified since the tragedy of 9/11 in the United States. The World Customs Organization's SAFE Framework with its Authorized Economic Operators (AEO) program is one of the prominent supply chain security initiatives. At the time of its introduction in 2005, 168 member countries signed their support for its implementation. However, the last AEO Compendium reports only 69 countries currently have AEO program in place. This relatively slow development indicates the complexity of issues that might challenge countries to implement the initiative. Against this background, this paper aims to look at the AEO implementation in an environment where supply chain security initiative is relatively new. It focuses on policy development perspectives where the case study of Indonesia might represent challenges of other countries. Involving methods of desk research, interviews, and field observation, this paper starts with the development of various international supply chain security programs where the AEO finds it prominence. It follows with a discussion on the Indonesian AEO implementation where challenges and its policy development process are explored.

In a changing trade landscape, global trade transaction relies on a global supply-chain network. Customs clearance to cross borders is critical to enhancing the competitiveness of both importers and exporters. As such, each country has adopted an authorized economic operator (AEO) program to promote the security of both imported and exported cargo as well as expedite freight movements. The purpose of this paper is to discover the factors which should be taken into account to utilize an AEO program, and to look at the causal relations between these factors.

This study conducted a survey on 201 AEO programs in Korea. With partial least squares, the structure model is tested using the coefficient value of the determination of the dependent variable, explained by the sign and scale of the path coefficient, statistical significance, and leading variable. Moreover, this study performed bootstrap re-sampling to verify all paths and significance.

It was found that AEO external pressure, training capacity, and sustainability are shown to have a significant impact on AEO performance. Furthermore, for the group with a high level of AEO application, training capacity and AEO sustainability are shown to have a greater effect on AEO performance. For the group with a low level of AEO application, internal regulation is shown to have a bigger impact on AEO performance.

This study sets itself apart from previous ones in that it examines AEO application for trade security and facilitation with regard to customs, which would affect global supply-chain management.

This study aims to investigate the motives for and the benefits of authorized economic operator (AEO) certification in the supply chain. Also, whether there are significant differences in the perception of the AEO status as a necessity or privilege among cargo owners and service providers.

The research design includes an international survey of 159 AEO-certified companies from four European Union (EU) countries performing various roles in the supply chain. The data are analyzed using quantitative methods, including factor analysis and analysis of variance.

Based on factor analysis, the research reveals the motives for and benefits of AEO certification. This reveals significant differences between two distinct groups of supply chain participants, namely, cargo owners and service providers. Service providers are mainly driven by the need to gain or maintain their competitive advantage and treat AEO certification as a standard that is required by customers. Cargo owners are relatively more focused on the improvement of internal processes and treat AEO certification as a privilege that helps them achieve a high level of efficiency.

The study fills the existing literature gap as it focuses on the differences between two distinct groups (cargo owners and service providers) in terms of their perception of the AEO certification. As empirical research in this area is scarce, especially at the cross-country level, this study also significantly complements knowledge on AEO certification in the EU.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a method to measure the difficulties of items required to achieve Authorized Economic Operator (AEO) validation and investigated companies’ abilities to obtain AEO certification based on an empirical analysis of 201 supply chain-related companies in Taiwan.

The Rasch model was applied to convert the ordinal raw data collected from questionnaire surveys into values on an interval scale to measure companies’ abilities and item difficulties for AEO validation. The model was estimated using WINSTEP, which is an iterative computer program.

The study results show that self-risk assessment and the formulation of security policies are the most difficult items to accomplish for AEO validation, whereas establishing security facilities is the easiest task to accomplish. Additionally, a company’s ability to obtain AEO validation was found to be positively correlated with a company’s turnover volume and its number of staff.

This research focusses on supply chain-related companies in Taiwan. Thus, the findings may not be transferable directly to other companies, circumstances, or countries.

Using the Rasch analysis, both company’s abilities and item difficulties could be measured numerically and compared meaningfully. The study results could be used as references for the government to create polices to guide companies to meet the requirements of AEO validation in the future.

According to the study results, only 43.28 percent of the respondent companies have sufficient confidence to completely comply with all 26 security items for AEO validation; this implies that AEO validation criteria should be adjusted or some programs should be provided by the government to improve companies’ abilities for AEO validation, if the government genuinely wants to effectively encourage companies to obtain AEO certification.

This study introduced a method to estimate items’ difficulties and companies’ abilities for AEO validation with values on a consistent interval scale. Thus, a comparison between companies’ abilities and items’ difficulties could be graphically illustrated. The results of this study provide a useful tool to investigate whether the AEO validation criteria are appropriate for the potential companies that can apply for AEO validation.

Faced with increasing competition, the ability to secure and optimise global logistics operations should be regarded as a competitive advantage. In the context of the hitherto little explored field of security and safety programmes, the purpose of this paper is to examine how an Authorised Economic Operator (AEO) certificate may affect the creation of a competitive edge for a freight forwarder.

By using the resource-based view as a theoretical background and a qualitative analysis using an interview grid inspired by the balanced scorecard, this research identifies resources and capabilities linked to the AEO certification.

The findings show two specific groups of resources that contribute to the creation of a competitive advantage. The first category is a process-type resource obtained through the AEO certification, which leads to more formalised and better-executed processes. The second relates to the freight forwarder’s knowledge, know-how and relational skills.

This research is developed in a logistics service provider context. It should be equally applied in other contexts and with other methods to provide generalisability.

Considering its contribution to an area of study currently under research, the findings may be useful to practitioners as a decision support tool to assess the value of the AEO certification.

This paper comes in the context of a yet little explored field, despite practitioners’ questions about custom certifications.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of financial investment (FI) in Authorized Economic Operator (AEO) certification on performance of Korean logistics companies through public and private partnership (PPP) and trade facilitation (TF).

Questionnaire survey was conducted to collect the data for this study, out of which 285 were adopted for the analysis using structural equation modeling for quantitative analysis. Also, it is based on professionals in Korean logistics companies that are AEO certified only.

FI on AEO certification had positive impacts on performance via PPP, while TF variable had no significant impact on the overall performance.

This study focuses on the FI in AEO certification and its impact on performance in Korea. There should be more quantitative and confirmatory research on other countries with AEO certification to validate the findings of this study. It may be possible to generate contrary findings in different economies or countries.

These findings imply that public managers should focus more on TF aspects of the program with the Mutual Recognition Agreement with major trading partners and growing economies around the world in order to make the AEO program more popular and global with supply chain members overseas.

This study has offered original discovery and practical, academic implications for AEO program in terms of testing and suggesting factors provided by previous studies as a confirmatory and quantitative research.

Due to the globalization of trade, hundreds of millions containers pass every year through world ports. Such a situation is extremely challenging in terms of securing freight transport operations. However, costs and lead-times are still very important components of supply chains' performance models. Therefore, the drive for enhanced safety and security cannot be made at the expense of these other two factors of competitiveness, and the processes implemented by the global supply chain links, including the maritime port one, should tend to a joint optimization of trade facilitation and operational safety / security.

The research on which this paper feeds back falls within the frame of this mixed performance requirement. More specifically, the paper presents a decision-support system dedicated to managing the risks associated with land and maritime container transportation; this system is based on the modeling of the knowledge of a group of experts, and covers the three phases of risk identification, assessment and avoidance / mitigation.

The purpose of this paper is to disentangle the interactions between logistics operators and government stakeholders in cross-border logistics operations with a specific focus on the UK and Brazil.

The research builds on supporting literature. The comparative cases of the UK and Brazil are examined by reference to an extensive series of focus group workshops as well as a series of interviews with key informants. Care was taken to make sure that comprehensive engagement the respective business and government communities were in place, and that there were opportunities to feedback on the analysis.

Suggestions were provided on how to improve the business–government interactions in cross-borders logistics operations. The analysis considered transaction costs and scope for trade facilitation. The research also helped produce a descriptive model of business–government interactions in cross-border logistics operations.

The paper points to new directions in the understanding of how businesses interact with government agencies, and the kind of issues they face in cross-border logistics operations. However, the research only looked at two countries and there is significant scope for further enquiry within the logistics literature.

Reduced transaction costs at the border and subsequent economic opportunities for the UK and Brazil.

A list of practical reform recommendations informed by the business communities of the UK and Brazil.

This paper’s original contribution to the literature is its framework for the analysis of transaction costs associated with the business–government interactions in cross-border logistics operations. In addition to the resulting findings in Brazil and the UK it may serve as a template for research elsewhere.

Customs risk management has been widely recognized as a powerful tool to balance between trade facilitation and revenue maximization. However, most customs administrations worldwide, particularly in developing countries, are suffering from a lack of experience and knowledge to assess their risk management systems for revenue protection (RP). Customs risk management has a very limited legacy in the literature. Academic research is quite scarce and very limited, although its relevance to customs administrations. This paper aims to identify the key risk profiles and indicators that contribute to the protection of customs revenue and investigate the role of these risk profiles and indicators on customs RP using the case of Jordan Customs.

This study adopts a panel data approach by using the case of Jordan Customs. Data were collected from the risk targeting and selectivity system at Jordan Customs for the year 2019, a total of 600 observations.

The findings show that all risk targeting criteria except random selectivity (RS) and HS code have a significant positive association with RP. The findings also revealed that RS is an effective tool to prevent traders with fraud and offenses history from a prediction of targeting patterns and to assess the traders’ compliance and make sure their declarations are free from fraud or offenses. Moreover, the findings of this study indicate that customs administrations should adopt alternative programs such as authorized economic operator and post clearance audit as an effective means to measure and improve compliance.

The main contribution of this study lies in proposing a model to assist customs administrations in assessing the performance of risk management systems to protect revenue. This model provides a comprehensive conceptualization and explanations necessary for numerous aspects of risk management projects and it assists to predict the outcomes based on formulated indicators.

This study provides guidelines for risk analysts on how to identify and assess the key risk profiles and indicators that effect on maximizing the detection of revenue leakage and to obtain interpretable and predictable results. In addition, the findings of this study will assist customs administrations in supporting revenue collection, minimizing uncertainty, allocating resources more effectively to target high-risk consignments, while simplifying the procedures for the safe consignments.

This paper is of significant value because it is one of the preliminary studies that empirically identify the risk indicators/profiles that contribute to the protection of revenue and investigate the predictive power of these risk indicators/profiles as a key predictor to protect customs revenue.

As trade policy disruption has become more commonplace, so have the calls for blockchain as a solution. But often the reasoning for this link has been unclear. Using the case study of Brexit as a baseline, the authors map four sources of trade-based uncertainty and explore the extent to which blockchain applications could – when implemented – attenuate supply chain disruption, which has lead to firms taking second best options like reducing investment and switching suppliers. Because the law has not kept pace with technology, the discussion also highlights prominent legal questions raised by blockchain in each instance.