Search results

Logistics at work is rapidly changing. The changing trend is especially prominent when considering the active involvement of individuals that perform diverse forms of formal/informal “logistics work” (e.g. crowd logistics and self-collection). Thus, by conducting a synthesised review (n = 55), this study aims to provide a typology of individuals' logistics work.

The total social organisation of labour is used as a guiding framework. A deductive literature analysis is performed based on the identified journal articles.

The review findings reveal three major contexts where individuals perform logistics work: formal organisation, social community and private household, with a decreased level of formality. Under each context, individuals may be engaged in paid or unpaid activities, creating six forms of logistics work, termed as paid/voluntary professional logistics, incentivised/friendly social logistics and rewarded/free consumer logistics. Furthermore, an actor–sphere–resource–value conceptualisation of individual logistics is proposed, focussing on the chains of actors, work settings, resource input and value outcome.

The results provide a theoretical foundation for further research in individual- or consumer-centrism in logistics. Two research directions and seven research questions are presented for future investigation.

Omni-channel shopping affords consumers a variety of delivery options to receive products based on their preferred times and locations. By considering consumers' contributions (physical, social and attentive efforts) in co-creating delivery services, this study investigates their preferences for parcel delivery.

A scenario-based questionnaire survey is conducted for data collection in Singapore (n = 483). Furthermore, a multinomial logistic regression is performed to assess consumers' choice mode of delivery among five alternatives, that is attended home delivery, unattended home delivery, automated self-collection locker, attended pickup point and click-and-collect.

Compared to attended home delivery, consumers who choose the alternatives are found to be more willing to contribute physical effort but less interested in responding attentively to informational updates. Efforts required for social interactions discourage consumers from choosing attended deliveries, prompting unattended alternatives (e.g. home delivery and self-collection) as more attractive choices. Additionally, socio-demographic factors and product value also influence consumers' preferences.

This study contributes to the literature by integrating the theoretical concept of consumer logistics into omni-channel studies, providing a new approach to examining consumers' channel behaviour. With detailed profiling that links product value and consumers' socio-demographics to their choice mode of delivery, the authors create practical insight into the optimal design of omni-channel distribution systems that best harness consumers' voluntary contributions.

The advent of digitalization and the trend of social distancing coincide with the individualized lifestyle that is emerging among contemporary shoppers. This study explores the unique market of “smart solo shoppers”. Two empirical studies are conducted, which aim to identify the major dimensions of multi-channel shopping activities that are engaged by the shoppers (Study 1, n = 64) and to differentiate the shoppers' valuation of time invested in the distinct dimensions under different cultural influences (Study 2, n = 519).

A survey questionnaire is used for data collection, and data are analyzed using structural equation modeling.

Results reveal that the shopping activities converge into four principal dimensions: offline shopping, online shopping, post-shopping delivery and product return activities. Shoppers who perceive offline shopping activities as a time burden and online shopping and delivery activities as venues of value creation are more strongly self-identified as smart solo shoppers. Furthermore, smart solo shoppers who are under a strong influence of individualistic culture are found to spend time on multi-channel shopping to make the right purchase the first time, whereas shoppers perceiving being in a weak individualistic culture prefer to engage online channels while being prepared to return the unwanted purchases.

This study highlights an emerging research field in the nexus of solo consumption and smart shopping. Emphasizing the utility-driven and ego-expressive nature of smart solo shoppers, the authors provide an initial profile of these shoppers based on their time-valuation patterns and the contextual impacts of individualistic culture.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a brand-new phenomenon in customer consumption patterns. This resulted from heightened health awareness brought on by the COVID-19 epidemic. There is a dearth of appropriate health psychology perspectives in the existing study examining the effect of COVID-19 on consumers’ use of crowdsourced logistics (CL) platforms. In order to provide unique and thorough insights into how consumer health concerns can affect consumers’ subjective views and their decisions to use CL, this study combines the health belief model and the technology acceptance model.

Five hundred valid responses from an online survey that was created and administered in Singapore were analysed using structural equation modelling.

The findings show that all of the suggested constructs have a favourable influence on consumers’ intentions to use CL. The suggested model also demonstrates high explanatory power, with perceived usefulness serving as the primary driver, followed by perceived ease of use and self-efficacy.

The study advances previous academic research on CL and offers guidance to CL companies and lawmakers for promoting sustainable and secured last-mile delivery.

E-commerce last-mile logistics is undergoing dramatic changes. By inviting consumers to participate in self-collection, they collectively form a mass crowd of resources that can be integrated into last-mile logistics. However, consumers' participation may lead to a spectrum of value outcomes from value co-creation to co-destruction. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to critically examine the value formation process focussing on micro-level practices and resource outcomes.

Anchored on practice theory and resource conservation theory, content analysis is adopted to analyse 546 practice-based experiences extracted from a leading social media platform.

The analysis reveals five sequential practices of self-collection: purchasing, delivering, notifying, receiving and confirming. Furthermore, the co-created practices are characterised by gains in material, esteem, social and energy resources of the interacting actors. Meanwhile, the co-destructed practices cause a chain of resource losses, where the interacting actors suffer primary losses which subsequently triggers consumers' coping behaviours and further destroys resources for all.

Focussing on constituent service practices, this study zooms into the value formation process. The authors contribute to logistics literature with a service-dominant logic by stressing end-consumers' involvement in the creation and consumption of last-mile logistics.

This study conceptualises the sources and consequences of the nuanced service practices (value formation or destruction) of self-collection. A unified framework is thus proposed, which guides logistics service providers to channel consumers towards more constructive participation in last-mile logistics.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in significant changes in consumer behaviour, which has had a cascading effect on consumer-centric logistics. As a result, this study conducts a focused literature review of pandemic-related consumer behaviour research to address two research questions: 1) what are the pandemic's direct effects on consumer consumption behaviour, with an emphasis on changes in their basic and psychological needs? and 2) what are the consequences of behavioural changes on consumer-centric logistics?

The scientific procedure and rationales for systematic literature review (SPAR-4-SLR) protocol and the theory, context, characteristics and methodology (TCCM) framework were adopted as a guideline to map, refine, evaluate and synthesise the literature. A total of 53 research articles were identified for further analysis.

Using Maslow's hierarchy of human needs as a theoretical guide, this review synthesises the COVID-19 pandemic's effects on consumer behaviour into four categories: abnormal buying behaviour, changes in consumer preferences, digitalisation of shopping behaviour and technology-related behaviour. Furthermore, four consumer-centric logistics propositions are proposed based on the four aspects of consumer behavioural changes.

This study outlines the significant behavioural changes in consumers in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic and how these changes impact consumer-centric logistics, with implications for managing consumers' involvement in logistics and pointing out future research directions.

Increasingly, the logistics industry offers innovative solutions that interact with end-consumers directly. The purpose of this paper is to examine the consumer participation behaviour in co-creating logistics service values, using self-collection via automated parcel station as an example. Built on the synthesised insights from logistics studies and behavioural theories on consumers’ attitude and affect, the effect of cognitions (what consumers think) and affects (what consumers feel) are investigated.

A total of 500 valid responses are collected from an online panel of respondents and the data are analysed using exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modelling.

Consumers’ affects towards participation are stronger motivations that not only intrinsically motivate consumers to participate but also exert an indirect influence via consumers’ cognitions.

To elicit consumers’ affections, it is critical to create enjoyable (enjoyment), assuring (assurance) and secure (security) service experiences. On the other hand, an overly straightforward service offering (in terms of cognitive functionality), void of the aforementioned experiences, may discourage consumers from participation.

This research unveils consumer participation in co-creating logistics service values, contributing to studies on the emerging phenomenon of consumer logistics. A rebalancing of the logistics research from a utility-creation perspective to an experience-creation perspective has been advocated.

Service conveniences (SCs) play a deterministic role in motivating consumers’ participation in self-collection (via attended pickup points or unattended automated locker systems). Accordingly, the SERVCON model provides a multi-dimensional conceptualisation of SCs, whereas the Kano model explains consumers’ satisfaction formation in response to multi-dimensional service attributes. Anchored on synthesised insights of both models, the purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to qualitatively apply the SC concept to develop specific service attributes of self-collection; and second, to quantitatively examine these attributes in relation to consumers’ satisfaction formation.

A quantitative Kano model is adopted for survey questionnaire design and data analysis, and 500 valid responses are obtained from an online panel of respondents in Singapore.

SCs are decomposed into 11 service attributes reflecting access, benefit, transaction and post-benefit conveniences of self-collection services. Distinctive patterns of satisfaction formation are revealed in response to specific service attributes; for example, consumers are most responsive to improvement in transaction convenience. Furthermore, as service performance level increases, benefits of spatial accessibility diminish, whereas those of temporal accessibility increase.

This study reveals key service attributes influencing the self-collection services’ convenience and impact on consumers’ satisfaction. Guidelines are presented for designing an optimal resource allocation strategy for logistics service providers to promote self-collection services.

This study synthesises diverse logistics literature on self-collection services under the central theme of SCs, thus enriching the conceptual development of SCs with a decomposed framework of logistics service attributes.

Crowd logistics is a rising phenomenon in last-mile delivery that integrates technological applications and sources a large number of participants to do logistical activities, achieving sustainable shipping in urban environments. However, up until now, there has been limited literature in this field. This research aims to investigate the extrinsic and intrinsic factors that impact the participative behaviour of driver-partners in crowd logistics.

An integrated model is developed based on motivation theory, incorporating attitude as a contributor to both extrinsic and intrinsic motivations. A questionnaire was constructed and distributed to collect data from 303 respondents who are existing or potential driver-partners in Vietnam.

Our findings confirm (1) the influence of monetary rewards on extrinsic motivation and (2) the power of self-efficacy, trust and sense of belonging on intrinsic motivation. Further, we find that attitude positively impacts extrinsic motivation, whereas there is no effect between attitude and intrinsic motivation. Both extrinsic and intrinsic motivations are demonstrated to significantly influence driver-partners' participative intentions. Additionally, a positive association is found between extrinsic and intrinsic motivations.

Findings from this study theoretically enrich the literature on crowd logistics, especially on the supply side, and empirically contribute to implications that are valuable to crowd logistics firms on driver-partner recruitment and business strategy development.

Although a dominant marketing concept, value co-creation (VCC) is not without controversy. Inspired by value co-destruction (VCD), the purpose of this paper is to review the scattered literature on the uncertainties in collaborative value formation, synthesising contingency factors of value outcomes in VCC.

The paper is based on an examination of 84 peer-reviewed journal articles. Recognising the drawbacks of the macroscopic abstraction in existing the VCC literature, the authors adopt a zooming-in approach to identify distinct patterns of contingency factors in the collaborative value-formation process.

From a macro-social perspective, VCC may connote a sense of exploitation of “consumers” and a need for consumer control of “producers”, impeding harmonious value formation. Zooming into actor-to-actor interactions, the collaborative relationship is found to be a source of uncertainties in value formation, which is further complicated by differences in the knowledge intensities of services. Finally, reviewing the individual consumer reveals a most nuanced picture that demonstrates heterogeneities of consumers’ VCC involvement and complexities in their perceptions and behaviours. Five propositions and a contingency framework are proposed.

Six value formation mechanisms are proposed based on interconnected and multi-level perspectives, providing implications for managers and future researchers.

This paper contributes to rebalancing VCC research by synthesising insights on the potential contingencies, which are relatively under-explored yet vital to keep the controversy alive and relevant, and re-invigorating business processes.