Logistics Asset Specificity and Information Technology Safeguards in the Food Supply Chain: The Creation of Fourth Party Logistics Networks

摘要

This paper examines the complex process of retail logistics network formation with particular reference to the evolution of retail logistics operations in the UK. Network theory is examined for its distinctive contribution to modern business literature in places where other theories of the firm, such as transaction costs theory, are regarded as insufficient in their own right to explain the complex processes of today's business operations. This process complexity is assessed by investigation of a transaction costs theory element, namely the asset specificity element, and the way it is perceived by the logistics asset buyer (the retailer) and the logistics asset supplier (the third party logistics firm). The investigation proposes a buyer / supplier relationship matrix for logistics assets, and suggests that a fourth party logistics network formation will reduce the resultant complexity of modern supply chain operations.