Search results

Deregulation shifts the responsibility for mitigation of agency problems from the regulatory parties to the firms' shareholders. We investigate whether and how governance structure changes in response to the dynamics of the new business environment after the Regulatory Reform Act of 1994 for the US trucking industry. We show that deregulation increases market competition in the trucking industry. The deregulated trucking firms not only adjust internal governance structure but also alter antitakeover provisions to adapt themselves to the competitive status of business environment after deregulation.

This paper aims to test the proposition that integrated marketing communications (IMC) practice is lagging in the trucking industry. It stems from the more general proposition extant in the literature that business to business (B2B) IMC practice lags business to consumer IMC practice.

In total, 109 trucking managers attending the American Trucking Association Annual Management Conference are asked which communications tools they use and for which strategic purposes. The new product adoption model (NPAM) provides a means of measuring efficient IMC practice.

Joint space perceptual maps generated by correspondence analysis reveal the association between trucking managers’ IMC mixes and the stages of the NPAM. Inspection shows that trucking managers deploy a relatively large number of traditional and digital tools to support all stages of the NPAM, indicating a sophisticated level of IMC knowledge and practice, contrary to the proposition that IMC practice is lagging in the trucking industry.

This contrary result suggests that IMC practice proceeds at different rates across B2B industries and must be examined on a per-industry basis. In combination with Garber and Dotson’s (2002) trucking IMC study, this study provides a second data point from which the evolution of IMC practice in the trucking industry can be tracked into the future. Additionally, this paper demonstrates the efficacy of the NPAM as a means of measuring the efficiency of IMC mixes, as well as for monitoring and training. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

NAFTA established guidelines for creating a seamless trilateral trucking market that has proven problematic to implement. Costs of border delays, traffic congestion, added pollution, and documentation requirements stymie North American policy makers. Use of just-in-time supply chain techniques by shippers exacerbates the inability of border infrastructure to meet time-sensitive traffic demands. This paper reviews NAFTA’s transport provisions and explores Mexican, U.S., and Canadian disputes in the context of continental integration. Progress toward harmonizing labor and equipment standards in the course of instituting NAFTA is investigated. Policies for additional border facilities investments and streamlining procedures are compared to heightened national security concerns.

One of the distinctive features in Korea and the U.S. trucking industries is the huge difference in the share of owner-operators. While it is around 10~15 percent in the U.S., 80~90% of drivers operate their own truck in Korea. Different from historical explanations of previous researches, this paper deals with this feature theoretically. We examine what brings the difference in asset ownership structures between the Korean and the U.S. trucking industries. Using an analytic framework, we investigate the determinants of truck ownership and the changes in ownership patterns. The model introduces several parameters related to productivities of drivers’ efforts and contractibility to affect drivers’ decision, and values of these parameters in both countries are discussed qualitatively and found to be consistent with the aforementioned characteristics.

The objective of this research was to examine factors that impact union elections in the trucking sector. Since trucking firms are labor intensive, unions can have an impact on the cost of doing business and competitiveness. One hundred and ninety‐nine union elections conducted by the National Labor Relations Board in trucking firms between January 2001 and December 2002 were examined. Type of union, size of bargaining unit, election delays, and voter turnout significantly impacted union win rates. Type of election, type of state, and type of bargaining unit did not impact union win rates. Implications for managers, educators, and union leaders in trucking are discussed.

Chronic driver turnover can adversely influence a trucking firm's competitiveness through disrupted delivery services, equipment down time and excessive recruiting expenses. Thus, a key to the survival of the trucking firm rests with its ability to recruit and retain qualified drivers who are less likely to cause turnover. In an effort to develop the ways to recruit and retain those drivers, we propose data mining techniques. Based on an empirical study of trucking firms in the USA, this paper not only develops a viable driver recruitment and retention strategy, but it also demonstrates the usefulness of the proposed data mining techniques.

The purpose of this paper was to explore various labor relations strategies and tactics used by trucking companies in union elections in the United States. In addition, the paper also examined how trucking firms changed their HRM practices after an election. The study, conducted in Summer of 2003, is based on a survey of trucking firms that had a union election between January 2001 and December 2002. Union suppression was the dominant and the most successful labor relations strategy. Some widely used management tactics during an election included hiring a labor lawyer, spreading rumors about job loss, and using a consultant known for breaking unions. After the election, significant increases in many progressive HRM practices were reported in firms regardless of the election outcome. But only firms where unions lost elections reported a significant increase in productivity and service quality. Implications for managers, educators, and union leaders in trucking are discussed.

Recent supply chain disruptions have highlighted the global shortage of truck drivers. Because it is a quintessential “masculine” profession, the proportion of women truck drivers is small, although efforts are underway to recruit and retain women. This research offers a comprehensive and theoretically-driven empirical analysis of women in the US trucking industry.

The research utilizes a detailed longitudinal database of 20 million driver inspections from 2010 to 2019. It is paired with US Social Security Administration data to infer the gender of the driver for each inspection. Descriptive evidence is provided, and a logit model is used to test the hypotheses.

The research finds that female truck drivers make up 3.2% of the inspection sample, but their representation has grown by 23.1% over the last decade. Women are vastly overrepresented in the jobs that are the easiest to get and underrepresented in jobs that offer better pay, more regular hours and more time at home. However, the proportion of women in more desirable truck driving jobs has grown from 2010 to 2019, offering positive news for the industry.

The research offers a more credible and realistic statistic for the proportion of women in the industry, contradicting previous industry figures. The research also highlights policy implications for industry stakeholders.

The truck driving industry is vital for a nation's economic sustainability. Truck driving jobs offer better wages and more opportunity than many non-professional female-dominant jobs. The research emphasizes the path to move into jobs that are better suited for women with domestic or family responsibilities.

The authors document hitherto unknown facts about women in the US trucking industry. Using theoretically driven research in organizational science, this study highlights the interplay of supply-side and demand-side factors that help to explain a nuanced perspective of the workforce composition and discusses potential policies to increase the number of female drivers.

Haulage contractors are always looking for ways of improving efficiency and reducing costs. These usually rely on better management practices. Computers are now an almost essential management tool and it would be reasonable to suggest that truck operators should be heavy users of computer software. There seems to be a considerable amount of software available to them, but it has been suggested that this is not widely used. To see if this is true a survey of the trucking industry was done in Alberta, Canada. This survey showed an unexpectedly low use of computers, with a preference for general business software rather than specialised packages designed for truckers. Operators often suggested their use of computers was limited by a shortage of adequate software. Overcoming this shortage could offer considerable benefits to both the trucking industry and software suppliers.

This chapter explores how long-distance truckers in the contemporary United States navigate work and family obligations. It examines how Christianity and constructions of masculinity are significant in the lives of these long-haul drivers and how truckers work to construct narratives of their lives as “good, moral” individuals in contrast to competing cultural narratives which suggest images of romantic, rule-free, renegade lives on the open road.

This study is based upon ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, observations of long-haul truckers, and participation in a trucking school for eight months in 2005–2006 and an additional four months in 2007–2008. Using feminist grounded theory, I highlight how Christian trucking provides avenues through which balance is struck between work and family and between masculinity and other identities.

Christian truckers draw upon older ideas about responsible, breadwinning fatherhood in their discourse about being good “fathers” while on the road. This discourse is in some conflict with the lived experiences of Christian truckers who simultaneously find themselves confronted by cultural narratives and expectations of what it means to be a good “worker” or a good “trucker.”

As these men navigate both work and social locations, gender expectations are challenged and strategies to ameliorate the work/family balance are essential.

The chapter contributes to discourse on gender studies as well as to the reshaping of ideology and practices of work and family in contemporary American culture.