Innovation in an international third party logistics firm : a strategy-as-practice perspective

Logistics firms play an important role in the economy but they have received little attention in strategic management and logistics management literature. This paper intends to fill in this gap by looking a specific strategising process, innovation, at an international third party logistics (TPL) fi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of transport and supply chain management 2010-11, Vol.4 (1), p.69-88
Main Authors: Su, Shong-Iee Ivan, Cui, Lianguang, Hertz, Susanne
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Case depth
Freight forwarding
Innovations
Jonkoping International Business School
Logistics
Logistics management
Soochow University, Sweden
Strategic management
Studies
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Summary:Logistics firms play an important role in the economy but they have received little attention in strategic management and logistics management literature. This paper intends to fill in this gap by looking a specific strategising process, innovation, at an international third party logistics (TPL) firm. Using strategy as a practice perspective, the paper describes and analyses how innovation emerges and evolves over time. Drawing on an in-depth longitudinal case study of an international TPL firm, this study shows that intra-organisational interactions as well as inter-organisational interactions are essential in the innovation process at logistics firms. The innovation process at logistics firms is complicated and includes both top-down and bottom-up processes. It is vertically decoupled and multidirectional. Innovation at logistics firms emerges as a combination of an ad hoc response to a customer request and a purpose-driven interactive process.
ISSN:2310-8789
1995-5235
1995-5235
DOI:10.4102/jtscm.v4i1.12