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This study aims to explore the gaps concerning the organizational operant resources (OORs) of logistics service providers (LSPs) expected in outsourcing relationships. The study considers the views of both manufacturing firms (M-firms) and LSPs in India and DACH region (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) seeking gaps within and across regions.

This research employed a survey targeting executives from large M-firms and LSPs in both India and DACH. The perceptions about the importance and improvement expectations of 17 OORs are analyzed. A modified version of importance-improvement analysis (A-B), a novel comparative A-B analysis (CABA) method, has been proposed to identify the importance and improvement gaps in OORs between M-firms and LSPs within and across India and the DACH region.

There are more gaps between M-firms and LSPs in India compared to DACH. Cross-country comparisons reveal that LSPs in India and DACH have similar perceptions concerning the OORs, but M-firms in India have significantly higher improvement expectations than those in DACH.

This study proposes an analytical approach that enables managers to identify improvement areas and better align with their outsourcing relationship partners. It also highlights aspects that need to be considered while entering emerging markets such as India.

The analysis approach using CABA is novel. Also, among the cross-country studies, this is the first to compare outsourcing relationships in India with the DACH region while involving both users' and service providers' perspectives.

This paper presents an overview of the recent development of Eurasian rail freight in the Belt and Road era and further evaluates its service quality in terms of transit times and transport costs compared to other transport modes in containerised supply chains between Europe and China.

A trade-off model of transit time and transport costs based on quantitative data from primary and secondary sources is developed to demonstrate the market niche for Eurasian rail freight vis-a-vis the more established modes of transport of sea, air and sea/air. In a scenario analysis, further cargo attributes influencing modal choice are employed to show for which cargo type Eurasian rail freight service is favourable from a shipper's point of view.

At present, Eurasian rail freight is about 80% less expensive than air freight with only half of the transit time of conventional sea freight. Our scenario analysis further suggests that for shipping time-sensitive goods with lower cargo value ranging from $US1.23/kg to $US10.89/kg as well as goods with lower time sensitivity and higher value in a range of $US2.46/kg to $US21.78/kg, total logistics costs of Eurasian rail freight service rail is cheaper than all other modes of transport.

As an emerging competitive solution, Eurasian rail freight demonstrates to be an option beneficial in terms of transport cost, transit time, reliability and service availability, which offers a cost-efficient option enabling shippers to build up agile and more sustainable supply chains between China and Europe.

Our study firstly provides a comprehensive assessment of present Eurasian rail freight including a thorough comparison with alternative modes of transport from a shipper's point of view.

According to the logistics performance index, emerging countries such as India are lagging behind developed countries such as Germany, Austria and Switzerland (DACH region). The purpose of this study is to compare and understand the differences in logistics outsourcing outlook in the two regions by considering both manufacturing firms (M-firms) and logistics service providers’ (LSPs) perspectives.

A survey targeting both LSPs and M-firms in DACH and India is conducted. A total of 96 responses were analyzed by using the chi-square test to investigate the differences and alignments in outsourcing motivation, relationship and governance between firms within and across regions.

M-firms in India bear strategic motivations behind outsourcing and those in DACH incline towards costs. LSPs in both regions align with the motivations of M-firms. M-firms in India rely more on LSPs by transferring the ownership of outsourced tasks, as compared to DACH. Both M-firms and LSPs in DACH claim a high level of ownership. However, firms in DACH and India do not differ significantly in terms of outsourcing engagements they seek.

The findings may only be generalized to large firms in India and DACH.

The findings of this study help managers enhance their understanding of the differences between M-firms and LSPs, and also across countries. LSPs in DACH, if they wish to operate successfully in India, will have to adapt to the M-firms strategic motivations and offer higher dependency.

This study is novel, as it investigates differences between India and DACH countries while also including both manufacturers’ and logistics service providers’ perspectives.

Carbon emissions commonly serve as an indicator for environmental friendliness, and so more and more carbon emission calculators (CECs) are offered that allow an estimation of the environmental footprint of freight transport operations. Unfortunately, their exact measurement is challenging due to the availability or poor quality of necessary input data and a multitude of possible calculation methods that may result in highly inaccurate to very misleading figures.

A structured online search was conducted to identify suitable online carbon emission calculators (OCECs) for further assessment in the form of a benchmark case that includes different modes of transport from road and rail to air and sea between China and Europe. Further comparison resulted in a ranking of OCECs along the categories of transparency (routing system, data sources and calculation method), completeness (input options) and accuracy (data output).

Different predefined inputs and calculation methods employed by the OCECs assessed inevitably result in a wide spread of more or less reliable carbon footprint measurement results.

All potential users of CECs, including policymakers, actors from the transport industry and other stakeholders, are well advised to question greenhouse gas (GHG) emission statements that are not backed by transparent procedures and internationally recognized calculation standards.

This study, including a benchmark case and a ranking, offers a guideline for potential users of CEC to avoid major pitfalls coming along with the present carbon footprint measurement of freight transport operations.

In recent years, logistics service providers (LSPs) have become important players in the humanitarian field, providing support for NGOs and governments when they respond to major disasters. However, the academic literature on humanitarian logistics has not really explored the roles that LSPs play in relief supply chains. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of LSPs in humanitarian relief.

The research uses a two-stage exploratory approach: first, it systematically reviews the humanitarian logistics literature to see the extent to which LSPs are taken into account. Then it analyses the web sites of leading LSPs to examine how they communicate about their role in humanitarian relief.

This research produces some surprising findings. While the academic literature seems to neglect the roles of LSPs in humanitarian logistics, some major third-party firms highlight their roles in relief networks. A number of research propositions are presented describing emerging roles for LSPs in relief supply chains.

This paper focuses on academic humanitarian logistics literature; a review of practitioner articles and the LSP literature might also be relevant. The web site analysis is based on corporate communication which may contain bias. Further research should add to this work with NGO/government perspectives and produce primary data in order to demonstrate the external validity of the research propositions.

The research identifies different roles LSPs could play in humanitarian supply chains, suggesting opportunities for new business lines.

The main contributions of this paper are to explore the roles LSPs could play in humanitarian logistics and to bring a new perspective to humanitarian logistics research.

Many city logistics projects in Europe have failed. A better understanding of the complex organizational change processes in city logistics projects with many stakeholders may expand city logistics capabilities and thereby help prevent future failures. The purpose of this paper is therefore to increase understanding of how city logistics emerge, and secondarily, to investigate whether such processes can be managed at all.

A paradigm shift in urban planning creates new ways of involving stakeholders in new sustainability measures such as city logistics. Organizational change theory is applied to capture the social processes leading to emergence of city logistics. The methodology is a qualitative processual analysis of a single longitudinal case.

The change process took different forms over time. At the time of concluding the analysis, positive dialectic forces were at play. City logistics schemes are still in an innovation phase. The biggest challenge in managing a process toward city logistics is to convince the many public and private stakeholders of their mutual interest and goals.

Urban goods transport sustainability schemes take many forms, and city logistics is but one such form. Furthermore, the methodology of a single context specific case study does not make prediction possible.

Fewer city logistics projects may fail due to stakeholder participation.

Fewer city logistics projects may fail. Thereby, cities become more environmentally and socially sustainable.

Insights into a city logistics project from a change management perspective has not previously been reported in literature.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the microfoundations of customer knowledge acquisition during logistics innovation development. Specifically, the authors explore the activities and behaviors of employees with customer contact (i.e. boundary-spanning employees (BSEs)) to deepen and broaden their knowledge about customers for the development of innovations.

Qualitative research based on multiple semi-structured interviews with BSEs of six logistics service providers was conducted to explore the deepening and broadening of customer knowledge during innovation development. Data were analyzed for similarities and differences in BSEs’ knowledge acquisition and their interactions with customers across six innovations.

Results show that BSEs engage sequentially in deepening and broadening customer knowledge throughout the logistics innovation development process. Yet, the specific sequence depends on the type of innovation developed (customized vs standardized). Customer knowledge tends to be deepened in one-on-one interactions, while knowledge tends to be broadened in interactions with numerous and diverse customer firm members.

In general, this paper contributes to the understanding of the individuals’ behaviors underlying organization-level phenomena, such as logistics service providers’ customer knowledge acquisition.

Findings illustrate that BSEs are well advised to concentrate on either deepening or broadening their customer knowledge in a single stage of the logistics innovation development process but switch between these two knowledge acquisition approaches from stage-to-stage to leverage customer interaction.

By investigating firms’ customer knowledge acquisition at the individual level, this paper addresses the calls in the literature for more research into the microfoundations of organizational phenomena.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a better understanding of how the supply chain structure (i.e. degree of vertical integration) of a focal organization shapes the breadth of its portfolio of technologies.

In total, three case studies were conducted involving key players in the Australian mass grocery retail sector. Each had a distinct supply chain structure (i.e. totally vertically disintegrated, partially vertically integrated and totally vertically integrated). Each supply chain case study included manufacturers or suppliers, transport and logistics service providers, wholesalers/distributors, as well as the mass grocery retail organizations. Interviews with key personnel from these organizations and other relevant information informed the findings and conclusions.

The information technologies employed by the three focal case organizations and their extended trading partners varied in terms of level, type, complexity and sophistication. The authors highlight how the choice of supply chain technologies is affected by supply chain structure (extent of vertical integration). The authors found that disintegrated supply chain structures have a broader portfolio of technologies, whereas integrated supply chains have a narrow portfolio.

This study is confined to three organizations in the Australian mass grocery retail sector, so any extensions should be made with caution.

The framework presented in this study can guide organizations in assessing the appropriateness of their supply chain portfolios of technologies with the structure of their supply chains. For standard setting bodies, the findings of this study suggest that technologies need to be tailored to the requirements of the supply chains, with the level of vertical integration being one easy way to segment the supply chain types.

The study adapts and extends the “arcs of integration” framework. The propositions enhance the understanding of how supply chain structure, in the form of degree of vertical integration influences an organization’s supply chain portfolio of technologies.

This article celebrates the 50th anniversary of IJPDLM, reflects on the contribution of IJPDLM to the field of logistics and supply chain management (LSCM) and discusses future directions for the journal.

Descriptive analysis of manuscripts received and accepted by IJPDLM during 2015–2019 is used to provide an overview of the journal. Content analysis of selected articles is used to highlight important contributions of the journal. Changes made since 2020 are highlighted to inform future directions of IJPDLM. Invited articles are discussed and used to clarify future directions.

IJPDLM has made tremendous progress in informing and shaping the field of LSCM. Key issues addressed include sustainability and reverse logistics, omni-channel, e-commerce, retail logistics, risk, resilience, volatility, and complexity and digital technology innovation. The journal has expanded the use of methods beyond the typical qualitative and quantitative methods to explore the use of design science, experiment, conjoint analysis, qualitative comparative analysis, narrative analysis. The invited articles provide (1) a historical reflection of the purpose of the journal when it was launched, (2) new guidance on how to develop theories using literature review and grounded theories and (3) understanding of startups and supply chain ecosystems.

Some exemplar articles are highlighted to explain how IJPDLM informs LSCM managers, companies and policy makers.

This article explains the recent development and sets future directions for the LSCM field.