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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.

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.

Strategic cost structure choices determine how firms divide operating costs between fixed and variable components, and therefore have important implications for financial performance. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of operating leverage on equity Betas when managers have discretion over firms' cost structures.

Using panel data for publicly listed trucking firms over years 1994‐2006, market model Betas are regressed on controls and alternatively measured proxies for operating leverage: degree of operating leverage, assets in place and percentage of company employed drivers.

Results of this study generally show positively significant coefficients on all three operating leverage variables.

Operating characteristics of many industries require that firms make substantial investments in long‐lived assets that result in high fixed costs (e.g. depreciation), and for these firms cost structure is exogenously or technologically constrained leaving managers with little discretion. In contrast to these types of firms, the authors examine the effect of operating leverage (OL) on Betas when managers have discretion over firms' cost structures. Trucking firms are a particularly interesting industry group for analyzing the impact of operating OL choices on Beta because distinct strategic cost structure choices are available to the management of trucking firms that result in various degrees of OL throughout the industry.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the transportation environment triggers, exacerbates and sustains truckers’ risks for obesity and associated morbidities.

An extensive literature review of PubMed Central and TRANSPORT databases was conducted on truckers’ obesity risks and 120 journal articles were identified for closer evaluation. From these, populations, exposures, and relevant outcomes were evaluated within the framework of the broad transportation environment.

Connections between the transportation environment and truckers’ risks for obesity‐associated comorbidities were delineated, and an original conceptual framework was developed to illustrate links between the two. This framework addresses links not only between the transportation environment and trucker obesity risks but also with other health strains – applicable to other transport occupational segments. Moreover, it provides direction for preliminary environmental‐scale interventions to curb trucker obesity. The utilization of this framework further underscores the need for: an appraisal of the health parameters of trucking worksites; assessment of truckers’ obesity‐risk trajectories, and examination of potential causality between the transportation environment, inactivity and diet‐related morbidities; and the development, implementation and evaluation of interventions to mitigate trucker obesity. While there is a geographic emphasis on North America, data and assertions of this paper are applicable to trucking sectors of many industrialized nations.

The paper brings to light the influences of the transportation environment on trucker obesity‐associated morbidity risks.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate and contribute to the understanding of the critical issue of “driver turnover” in the USA long-haul trucking environment which is becoming a malaise in the transportation sector not only in the USA but also worldwide. Most importantly, it accomplishes this through an exploration of the perceptions of the “drivers” themselves regarding the external customer-base in the trucking industry. This, to the best knowledge of the authors, has not yet been done and so becomes the missing angle in focus on driver turnover research.

This exploratory study employs a qualitative research methodology via in-depth interviews of a select sample of drivers in a field setting followed by content analysis of the responses. This methodology, by and large, is the most suitable for this type of exploration.

A content analysis of the perceptions of drivers reveals several important reasons (or causes) for driver turnover. This paper elaborates on those and offers customer-centric solutions to alleviate the plight of the driver and improve overall performance in the trucking sector.

Needless to say, this exploratory research should be replicated in several other locations within the USA, other settings (e.g. trucking in extreme conditions), and other countries in order to enhance the external validity of the findings and recommendations.

All implications of this research are practical as they have direct managerial significance.

The value of this research lies in the fact that, to the best knowledge of the authors, this is the first study that explores the perceptions of long-haul drivers regarding the external customer-base of the trucking industry. The findings have direct implications for management in the trucking sector.