Logistics outsourcing by Moroccan manufacturing firms: a qualitative study

Evaluating logistics outsourcing: a survey conducted with Brazilian industries

“…The discussion on logistics outsourcing can be seen from the perspective of several theories, with the combination of transaction cost economics (TCE) (Williamson, 1985) and a resourcebased view (RBV) (Barney, 1991), which is the most used in the discussion on logistics outsourcing (Mageto et al, 2018;Solakivi et al, 2018;Marchet et al, 2018;Fadile et al, 2018;Thai et al, 2021). Other theories used are: the contingency theory (Bandeira et al, 2015), institutional theory (Bandeira et al, 2015); network theory (Fadile et al, 2018), social exchange theory (Zhu et al, 2017) and the concept of core competencies (Rintala et al, 2021), which is based on RBV (Thai et al, 2021). This study is grounded on RBV and TCE, inspired by Holcomb andHitt (2007), McIvor (2009), Neves et al (2014) and Gerbl et al (2015) who studied business process outsourcing by using a combination of both theories in the management operations context.…”

“…There are several motives against logistics outsourcing that are associated with risks (such as loss of control), performance and trust issues, incompatibility in information technology and insufficient knowledge to observe the needs of the outsourced (Selviaridis and Spring, 2007) regarding 3PL providers. In light of RBV, companies decide to outsource their logistics activities to a 3PL provider to gain access to a larger range of resources (tangible knowledge such as materials, warehouses, equipment and intangible knowledge, know-how and organisational assets) and aim to minimise their transaction costs (TCE) (Fadile et al, 2018), but only if this logistics provider shows good financial health, reputation on the market, and so on. Therefore, this decision takes into consideration the analysis of the 3PL providers to check the availability, historic relationship with partners (Aharonovitz et al, 2018) and financial health of providers in the market, not only offering good services, resources (Bandeira et al, 2015); it is important to check tax debt, supplier payment capacity, debt with suppliers (De Oliveira Neto et al, 2018), capacity to generate profit, low reputation with clients and other taxes (Hwang et al, 2016).…”

“…The "financial factor" brings value to the analysis and success validation for a logistic outsource, in which price and low cost distribution are the most important attributes when companies select their 3PL providers (Aguezzoul, 2014); this means that the financial condition is relevant in logistics outsourcing decisions. In the literature, cost is an important criterion in logistics operations, as highlighted by Fadile et al (2018), Zhu et al (2017). Companies seek benefits on logistics outsourcing services, especially in the areas of logistics costs (Zailani et al, 2017), and fixed prices and flexible prices (according to the demand) (Guarnieri et al, 2015) may reduce uncertainties in the transactions.…”

“…, 2015), institutional theory (Bandeira et al. , 2015); network theory (Fadile et al. , 2018), social exchange theory (Zhu et al.…”

“…There are several motives against logistics outsourcing that are associated with risks (such as loss of control), performance and trust issues, incompatibility in information technology and insufficient knowledge to observe the needs of the outsourced (Selviaridis and Spring, 2007) regarding 3PL providers. In light of RBV, companies decide to outsource their logistics activities to a 3PL provider to gain access to a larger range of resources (tangible knowledge such as materials, warehouses, equipment and intangible knowledge, know-how and organisational assets) and aim to minimise their transaction costs (TCE) (Fadile et al. , 2018), but only if this logistics provider shows good financial health, reputation on the market, and so on.…”