Signposts on the Path to Logistics Service Providers (LSPs) Entrenchment in Business Relationships: A Conceptual framework and Research proposal

Abstract

Like the entrenched managers who manage to keep their positions despite corporate governance mechanisms, this paper aims to develop our understanding of the LSPs entrenchment process in business relationships, its initial conditions and its generative mechanisms by mobilizing the concepts of power and dependency in logistics outsourcing. The paper seeks to answer a central question about how the entrenchment of LSPs occurs and develops in business relationships, if attention were paid to the LSP’s leadership in the relationship and its ability to balance power relations to entrench the shipper’s dependency. To do, authors mobilize a theoretical framework of managerial entrenchment from the organizational finance and the power-dependency at inter-firm level and transpose the entrenchment theory to inter-organizational relationship in logistic. The Managerial interest of this research arises from the importance of modelling the LSPs entrenchment process to help shippers to monitor their growing dependency on LSPs and continuously map their power profile.

Keywords

• Entrenchment
• Power
• Dependency
• Logistic outsourcing
• Resources
• Performance