Title: A Global Electronic Market (GEM) for logistics services and supply-chain management: the expert view

Authors: Sveinn Vidar Gudmundsson

Addresses: Department of Strategy and CERMAS Research Centre, Toulouse Business School, 20 Blvd Lascrosses, 31068 Toulouse, France

Abstract: The aim of the research was to clarify why integration efforts in logistics, through electronic markets, have been difficult to accomplish and to seek industry expert opinion on where the key benefits and barriers lie. A three round Delphi approach was used. The first step was to generate factors in response to three probes and then to iterate the responses among the experts until stability occurred. Factors suggested by the experts fall into groupings suggested in prior research on Inter-Organisational Systems (IOS). Factors having high consensus likely to influence adoption, fell into three categories: trust, pressure and perceived benefits. This research indicates that logistics integration through electronic markets is viable and sellers are likely to feel pressure from buyers, but are most likely to resist market adoption on trust and competition issues.

Keywords: logistics services; logistics integration; electronic markets; e-marketplaces; Delphi forecasting; SCM; supply chain management; e-commerce; trust; pressure; perceived benefits; inter-organisational systems; IOS; global electronic market; GEM; technology adoption; intermodal transportation; global supply chains.

DOI: 10.1504/WRITR.2006.011148

World Review of Intermodal Transportation Research, 2006 Vol.1 No.1, pp.3 - 23

Published online: 19 Oct 2006 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article