The purpose of this article was to identify the steps that need to be taken when choosing an effective third party logistics provider. Based on the research completed, it was determined that third party logistics are beneficial to many companies. The use of third party logistics provides a competitive advantage in today’s business world. The optimal solution for a company choosing a third party logistic provider would be a five‐step process.

Today, human resource management is being renewed in organizations and is gradually affirming its strategic role. The need for highly qualified managers will increase as more organizations globalize their operations. The research presented in this paper highlights the need for management who are sensitive to the concerns of multicultural employees. The effects of cultural diversity on organizational behavior are complex and powerful. Within this perspective, the definition of diversity in the USA and the goals in achieving a more diverse workplace will be discussed. This paper will also examine the different facets involved in managing and developing a diverse human resource base. Organizations take into account their human resource base before hiring employees. One factor they look at is the possible advantages and disadvantages of a multicultural and diverse organization. This paper will examine ways by which managers and employees can learn about diversity, understand it, and respect it on a day‐to‐day basis when dealing with people from other diverse backgrounds.

This paper explores ways of improving logistics and distribution supply chains within the food retail industry. It includes the concepts of logistics and supply chain as well as the new challenges in the food industry. The paper derives that businessto-business and e-commerce are the ways of the future. The paper discusses the successes and failures of the industry. Its results reveal slow progress in accomplishing the goals of leaner supply chains and easier distribution.

The pur pose of this study was to re search re tail lay out of a lo cal su per mar ket. The five con cepts of re tail lay out were used to de ter mine if the su per mar ket was achiev ing an ef fec tive lay out. To ac com plish this study, we ap plied previ ous stud ies, con ducted in ter views, and made use of the store for our own re search. Af ter dis cov er ing that the lo cal su per mar ket needed some im provements, rec om men da tions were made to im prove the su per mar ket from the cus tom ers' point of view. The other ob jec tive of our study was to de ter mine if the su per mar ket uti lised floor space to max i mise prof it abil ity per square foot. Our find ings helped to ver ify whether the su per mar ket im ple mented an ap pro pri ate lay out.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to review past and current research on the productivity problems and how to alleviate it by appropriate training. Design/methodology/approach -The article presents the collective results of two experiments, a grocery store chain, and a top outsourcing provider to show the higher levels of productivity can be achieved by proper training methods. Findings -The results of two experiments specify that businesses should incorporate proper training techniques in order to increase their productivity. If such an approach to generating high levels of productivity contingent on training is implemented, we expect that business should harvest the benefits. Research limitations/implications -Ideally, the experiments reported on should be extended to comprise a measure of the amount of employer-provided on-the-job training and training costs. Originality/value -This research contributes to the current training and productivity literature by emphasizing, to both human resource practitioners and policy makers, inadequate investment in workforce training is related directly to poor employee. The results have offered practical implication to organizational training.