research paper of logistics

• Original article
• Open access
• Published: 22 September 2021

Assessment of logistics service quality dimensions: a qualitative approach

• Gamze Arabelen 1 &
• Hasan Tolga Kaya   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0150-4182 2  

Journal of Shipping and Trade volume  6 , Article number:  14 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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Globalization and complex supply chain networks have been affecting Logistics Services Providers’ (LSPs) service delivery and service expectations. Logistics Service Quality (LSQ) is becoming a more important aspect for LSPs and logistics service customers. In recent years, there has been an increase in the studies on service quality in logistics. Researchers have been trying to identify aspects of LSQ and its dimensions in order to create a measurement model that could be used in overall logistics services. However, there is still neither a unified nor agreed LSQ measurement model in the literature and researchers have been debating continuously on the proposed models. This paper targets to investigate and suggest LSQ measurement dimensions obtained from previous studies by analyzing the findings within a systematic approach and improving the findings with semi-structured interviews. In this study, systematic literature analysis has been conducted to research papers published in selected academic databases with specific keyword and keyword cluster searches to identify the related articles published within a specified period. Papers have been selected in accordance with the predefined criteria. As a result, a total of 59 articles have been determined for the search criteria and the findings obtained were analyzed. Most frequently used research trends and methods on service quality in logistics have been identified. In addition, the most frequently used LSQ dimensions and factors have been reviewed. Moreover, the most frequently used service quality approaches and measurement models have been analyzed. The results received from systematic literature review have been composed and dimensions have been identified. Semi-structured interviews with LSPs and customers of LSPs in Germany-based companies have been conducted to strengthen the findings gained from systematic literature review. 5 LSQ dimensions and 24 factors have been formed with the help of semi-structured interviews. This paper represents the basis for further research for empirical studies and can be used as a guideline for quality management practices in logistics applications and transport.

Introduction

Globalization and growing supply chain networks have been pushing logistics service providers to focus on the provided logistics practices. Simultaneously, service types offered by logistics service providers have increased quickly. Importance of logistics services also has been increased universally; hence, service quality has become an important driver for LSPs. The importance of logistics services is known by practitioners and academics. Significance and interest in Logistics service quality (LSQ) have been also increasing. The concept of LSQ is equally important for customers and LSPs (Mentzer et al. 1999 ; Thai 2013 ). High level of LSQ increases logistics providers’ competitive advantage among compelling business environments (Wang and Hu 2016 ). Good service quality offered to customers generates customer satisfaction as well as customer loyalty for the service provider (Franceschini and Rafele 2000 ; Davis and Mentzer 2006 ; Baki et al. 2009 ).

There has not been any clear understanding of the LSQ concept despite the increasing number of research papers. Major focus of the researchers has been on the concept of the LSQ and its quality attributes, how to analyze and measure the quality of the services (Bienstock et al. 1997 ; Mentzer et al. 1999 ; Franceschini and Rafele 2000 ; Rafele 2004 ). Nonetheless, researchers have developed different ideas on logistics concept and service quality dimensions over time. There have been very few studies with the holistic approach on the LSQ to analyze overall developed dimensions and the attributes along with the general framework. Therefore, a comprehensive LSQ model that would incorporate different sectors is not available at present.

General approach of the researchers developing a study in LSQ has kept the literature review part very short and directed it to particular approaches without critically viewing the literature. This paper is aiming to address the previously mentioned issue by analyzing papers related to LSQ with a systematic approach. This will ensure that previous findings from scientific papers are systematically analyzed and presented and findings can be used in future studies to develop scientific or practical LSQ studies. Additionally, this study is anticipating LSQ attributes by analyzing research trends and general usage of LSQ dimensions, research methods, and fields of sectors. Furthermore, it is aiming to conduct a semi-structured interview with logistics professionals in order to confirm and enhance the outcome of the systematic literature review.

This paper has been developed through multiple sections. In the first section, research methodology has been explained. General approach in the systematic literature review, paper selection criteria, keywords, databases, and preliminary paper classification have been described in the second section. In the third section, descriptive analysis of the selected papers has been carried out. In the fourth section, LSQ dimensions and attributes have been analyzed and the LSQ measurement model has been created to discuss the findings in semi-structured interviews. In the fourth section, semi-structured interviews and findings from business professionals’ contributions have been explained. In the fifth section, a brief overview of this study has been presented and in addition notes on future works have been provided.

Research methodology

Systematic literature review methodology has been used in this study to have a holistic approach towards LSQ studies and interpret the findings obtained from previous papers. Systematic literature analysis method has been considered a technique of systematic, qualitative, objective, and quantitative description in the research area (Berelson 1952 ). A systematic content analysis methodology has been considered a very powerful and an explicit tool because of its ability to combine qualitative approaches retaining rich meaning with quantitative analyses (Duriau et al. 2007 ; Fink 2005 ). Additionally, the main difference between systematic literature review and traditional literature review has been considered the first comprehensive search section (Crossan and Apaydin 2010 ). In order the follow a structured method with valid results, a systematic literature review approach from the literature has been applied (Seuring and Gold 2012 ). In this regard, a systematic literature review has been planned in this study with several steps as: material collection, descriptive analysis, category selection, material evaluation. Material collection reflects gathering all necessary papers from previously created criteria. Collection of materials has been the most crucial step in systematic literature reviews. In the study, literature regarding the LSQ has been selected from peer-reviewed journals and literature databases, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, Emerald, Taylor and Francis, JSTOR, Business Source Premier, and the web. Second part of the systematic literature review has been descriptive analysis. Only studies in English language and published between 1995 and 2020 have been selected for the future classification. The formal characteristics of the selected papers have been set out in the descriptive analysis section to provide background for the content. Consequently, publication years, research methods and research fields of reviewed journals have been documented. Structural dimensions and related categories for future analytics have been selected in category selection. In the material evaluation section, all analyses have been presented according to determined categories and parameters.

Semi-structured interviews have been used in this study to consolidate the LSQ dimension findings from systematic literature analysis, as it is the most frequently used interview method (Taylor 2005 ; Dicocco-Bloom and Crabtree 2006 ). Flexibility and reciprocity of semi-structured interviews have benefited the LSQ discussion. Questions regarding service quality in logistics have been prepared prior to meetings, which were shaped around the systematic literature review findings and perceptions of the participants. In semi-structured interviews, following a strict structure is not advised (Kallio et al. 2016 ). Definite resolution on logistics quality and definition of quality dimensions have not been agreed upon for LSQ, therefore a semi-structured interview qualitative approach is considered more convenient in order to allow participants to express themselves. In order to create successful semi-structured interviews, a five-step model has been utilized (Kallio et al. 2016 ). Firstly, prerequisites of the interviews have been decided. Due to the coronavirus pandemic situation, related global restrictions and organizations, new working models such as online meeting method have been selected. Second step is gathering previous knowledge on data by using the systematic literature review. This has allowed the interviewer to gain knowledge and confidence in regular spontaneous follow-up questions. In the third step, guidelines of the interview have been developed. Questions have been prepared regarding participants’ understanding of LSQ, participants’ perception of the identified LSQ dimensions and follow-up questions regarding examples for the in-depth analysis of the topic. In the fourth step, a pilot has been conducted with one logistics business professional to test the clarity of the developed approach. In the final step, semi-structured interviews have been performed with five logistics professionals.

Systematic literature review

Systematic literature review is advised to be applied to a specified period of time. Therefore, materials have been selected from research papers that were published between 1995 and 2020. Specific keywords related to service quality in logistics have been used in literature databases such as Web of Science, ScienceDirect, Emerald, Taylor and Francis, JSTOR, Business Source Premier, and the web to identify the first step. Only papers that have been peer-reviewed in English language have been selected for further analysis for systematic review. Table 1 provides a summary of sample paper selection. In literature databases with keyword matches in their titles, 221 papers that are fit for the search criteria have been found. Furthermore, the suitability of the sample has been checked by applying a two-stage screening process. First screening has been applied to the abstracts of the selected papers. After analyzing the abstracts of 221 papers, sources that were irrelevant or with little relevance to the topic have been excluded from further analysis. However, studies with no abstract or with unclear information have been directly transferred to the second stage. In the second screening process, full paper review has been applied to enforce the relevance of the selected literature sample. Additionally, papers that have been cited multiple times and fit to the criteria of this research have been included in the samples. As a result, final sample has consisted of 59 papers.

After collecting the sample based on criteria, descriptive analysis has been followed, as it would create a framework for the systematic analysis. In this context, formal characteristics have been analyzed. Consequently, publication years and service fields have been analyzed to identify the preliminary framework of the selected literature sample. Publication years of the selected studies have shown that the trend towards the research topic of LSQ had been increasing. Findings of the study have shown that the LSQ is still a discussion subject among researchers. In order to show the academic interest in the LSQ topic, selected timeline of 25 years has been divided into five years of periods. The results have shown that 23 papers were published between 2015 and 2020, which clearly shows the increasing relevancy and interest in the research topic. Furthermore, search fields of selected papers have been analyzed and results reflected that 49% of the studies have been conducted in the logistics field and the second most popular research field groups have indicated the industrial management field with 20% of the total sample.

After analyzing the descriptive specifications of the selected research paper samples, analytic categories have been selected including research methods, data analysis methods, LSQ dimensions, service quality measurement models, approach of the studies. In the last part of the systematic literature analysis, selected categories have been analyzed and categorized to create some practical guidance on the LSQ research question. According to Avenier (2010), decontextualized evaluation of the literature analysis’ results brings out the possibility of proposing a certain degree of generalization for the findings. Therefore, systematic literature review findings have been used to identify the first design of the LSQ dimensions and later discussed in semi-structured interviews.

Analysis of the Categories

Previously founded categories have been analyzed to create further research design with transparency. Therefore, used data analysis and research method of selected literature sample have been analyzed. Table 2 provides an overview of the used researched methodology. According to the results, linear usage of qualitative, quantitative, and multiple data analysis known as triangulation has been used among 51% of the studies and 76% of the studies have had empirical approach.

There is an increase in empirical studies about the LSQ topic in addition to using existing created models and trying to validate the quality measurement models. Besides, many researchers have been searching the relationship between the LSQ and other attributes such as loyalty and satisfaction. Consequently, this increase in validation studies may refer to a reaction to unconformity on the search field and in search of study and generalized LSQ measurement model. Moreover, qualitative LSQ dimensions developing studies have been mainly observed in early periods and most researchers preferred to create an LSQ model and validate its reliability by quantitative methods throughout the time. Details of the research approach method with corresponding publications has been presented in Table 3 . From triangulation, Mentzer et al. ( 1999 ), created a nine-dimension service quality measurement model which is broadly used, Feng et al. ( 2007 ), Gil-Saura et al. ( 2008 ) and Thai ( 2013 ) also developed different models which were created for the need of the search in LSQ with different approaches.

Table 4 provides an overview of the ratio of used LSQ measurement models and, it is clear that most of the researchers preferred to create a unique service quality measurement model for logistics or preferred to add a modification to generally used methods instead of directly using developed and proved reliable methods. Logistics services have been always a chain of multiple services and findings may show differences among supply field, region or service expertise. For instance, Zailani et al. ( 2018 ) focused on LSQ considering halal logistics network and developed an individual service quality model. Thai ( 2008 ) has provided a service quality method for port operations and defined six brand new dimensions: resources, outcome, process, management, image or reputation and social responsibility. Despite having specialized service quality measurement models for logistics operations, most of the researchers have used the classical model of SERVQUAL in quantitative research. This approach also provides an insight into the inefficient LSQ measurement model for general usage.

In addition, the LSQ scale created by Mentzer et al. ( 1999 , 2001 ) has been used by researchers particularly. Rafiq and Jaafar ( 2007 ) had used the LSQ scale to measure customer perception on 3PL service providers, authors suggested generalizability of the LSQ scale on a similar sample model. Bouzaabia et al. ( 2013 ) has utilized the LSQ scale to compare the LSQ perception between Romania and Tunisia in retail logistics. Yumurtaci Huseyinoglu et al. ( 2018 ) has investigated the service quality scale model on Omni-channel capability. Table 5 provides an overview of LSQ dimensions and how often they are used in literature. The publication list has been submitted in chronological order to provide an overview of the development of LSQ dimensions that have been used throughout the period of the systematic research analysis. Due to different naming conventions on similar meanings, LSQ dimensions have been grouped by their relevance to each other. As a result, most frequently used LSQ measurement dimensions have been identified. Dimensions related to communication have been used 27 times in total, which have been mentioned under different names such as personal contact quality; responsiveness; customer focus etc. Second most frequently used LSQ dimensions are process-related and have been mentioned 20 times in the selected sample publications. Process related dimensions have been mentioned as order release quantities, order accuracy, order discrepancy handling, order quality and correctness, etc. Third but not least used dimensions are time-related and have been used 19 times in publications throughout the period. Time-related dimensions have been named in different forms such as timeliness, on-time delivery, lead time, etc. Over time, it has become clearly visible that while the focus of the operational quality has lost its importance and significance, communication-related dimensions and empathy dimension usage and their relation to quality have gained importance due to factors such as, responsiveness, empathy, personnel contact quality, etc.

The findings have indicated that the LSQ research area has remained incomplete in the literature. Thus, tailored service quality with hierarchical dimensions for logistics services are more applicable to analyze LSQ. Dimensions have been selected based on their relevance and frequency of use. As it has been noticed from the studies, focus on customer-related services in logistics operations is increasing, therefore, dimensions related to customer focus quality have been selected as the first dimension for this study to analyze further in the interviews. Additionally, by the image of the company and social responsibility acts investigated under a total of six LSQ dimensions and twenty sub-factors have been identified by their relevancy on logistics and the frequency of the use: Information quality, customer focus quality, order fulfillment quality, timeliness quality, corporate image and social responsibility were selected.

Semi-structured interviews

Semi-structured interviews allow participants and the interviewer to interchange knowledge within mutual benefit and, allow the interviewer to ask follow-up questions to participants based on the development of the answers (Rubin and Rubin 2005 ). In order to benefit from the professional view of the participants, semi-structured interview method has been selected. Semi-structured interview method is considered more fit for further investigation on LSQ dimensions because the topic is broadly discussed and has no consensus has been reached either on the definition or on the quality dimensions. Semi-structured interview has allowed participants to roam freely around the topic, and follow-up questions have provided preferable inputs and modifications on developed LSQ dimensions and sub-factors. As shown in Table 6 , interviews were carried out with five logistics business professionals. Two of the participants were logistics managers in retail business, one was the logistics service provider team lead and two of them were logistics specialists for logistics service providers. All interview participants and their companies were located in Germany and companies have the scope of working in global logistics and supply chain businesses. All interviews have been conducted through online calls, and meetings have been recorded. Five interviews lasted average of thirty minutes for each participant.

Semi-structured interview questions have been designed according to the outcome of the systematic literature review. Open-ended questions have invited participants to follow-up the topic. Open-ended questions have been designed for each participant and their companies. Next set of questions have been designed for each quality dimension that has been identified in the systematic literature analysis and the said questions asked participants their point of view to validate and modify the proposed model. In general, participants have been directed with general questions to understand their personal quality perceptions and followed-up with prompt questions.

As a result, construction of the preliminary proposed quality dimensions has changed. All participants have expressed the importance of their customer value and its relation with quality perception, also they have highlighted that quality dimension is in fact a customer obsession. Therefore, naming has been changed to ‘ customer obsession quality’ from ‘ customer focus quality’ . Additionally, all participants have highlighted and agreed on the social responsibility activities are related to companies’ image; therefore, LSQ dimensions have merged under one quality dimension: social responsibility and company image. Additionally, LSQ factors have also been discussed and modified as a consequence of the interviews. Sub-dimensional quality factors have raised to 24 from 20 in total. Final LSQ dimensions and factors have been defined as shown in Table 7 .

After the final evaluation of semi-structured reviews, shipment tracing capability, innovative solutions in logistics services; reliability, regularity, flexibility and availability of service, company’s reputation for reliability have been added to the LSQ factors and LSQ scale has been developed with five quality dimensions and 24 factors in total.

Research findings

Research findings have been developed with qualitative research techniques. Firstly, systematic literature analysis has been applied to the LSQ related papers with specified criteria between 1995 and 2020. Samples have been analyzed with systematically created filtering and descriptive analysis. Results have been analyzed and shown that researchers have not reached a consensus either on the LSQ perception or the measurement method. Additionally, a paradigm shift towards customer-oriented services from the natural physical movement of the cargoes has been observed in recent years. As a result, logistics service customers are giving more importance to business-to-business or business-to-customer communication and empathy. This change has been seen in the recent LSQ publications as well. As a consequence of the initial analysis, six dimensions and twenty logistics factors have been developed. Preliminary findings have been discussed in five semi-structured interviews. Logistics professionals’ contributions have been included in this study to ensure that literature key findings are in line with actual business and quality dimensions have improved by the outcome of the results.

As a result, systematic literature analysis has shown that SERVQUAL quality measurement method is still broadly used; however, there have been great contributions from many authors towards LSQ and the creation of logistics specific quality measurement model. Despite these improvements, there has been no consensus on the singular quality measurement model. This research proposes LSQ dimensions and factors created from systematic literature analysis and semi-structured interviews. Firstly, six-dimensional twenty factors have been developed and findings have been improved after the semi-structured interviews. Final model proposes five LSQ dimensions with twenty-four factors.

Conclusion and recommendations for further researches

Logistics services have been continuously growing around the world. These improvements and developments have increased the competition among service providers. There has been an increment in the number of research papers exploring this area. Service providers are trying to leverage operational excellence with high quality of services to maintain customer satisfaction, loyalty, and market competition. A regularly dynamic environment requires dynamic solutions, therefore, logistics services are constantly in development. Consequently, the perception of LSQ has been changing.

It has been found that LSQ understanding and applications have been evolving around the business focus of LSPs. Throughout the development of the quality dimensions in logistics, there have been different approaches from different authors. In the literature, the focus of the LSQ dimensions has been differing among different periods of the samples and it clearly shows the change in the focus on the quality. After observing a period of twenty years, early developed LSQ dimensions have shown that quality focus is mainly on the physical attributes of the operations, such as physical distribution and timeliness related dimensions. Over time, logistics services have accumulated more customer-oriented operations hence, in later periods customer-related LSQ dimensions have been observed, such as personal service/contact, empathy. The dimensional switch has also been accepted in semi-structured interviews and recorded as the most important dimension of the LSPs. Therefore, currently keeping positive relations with customers by providing emphatic continuous relationship has been more important for LSPs.

Despite having a high rate in empirical studies, findings suggest that researchers used repeatedly SERVQUAL model in LSQ measurement even though there have been measurement models created specifically for logistics services. This indicates that the search of the LSQ dimensions and measurement methods have not been completed; hence, it is open for improvement and eventually reaching the recognized LSQ measurement method. This study is providing a framework for service quality in logistics for researchers and logistics professionals by systematically analyzing the previously developed studies and measurement models. Primary quality dimensions have been developed from systematic literature analysis by systemizing and organizing the existing literature. Then, additional interviews have been conducted with service professionals. As a result, framework of LSQ has been developed with five dimensions with customer obsession quality, order fulfillment quality, timeliness quality, information quality, corporate image and social responsibility and twenty-four factors. The holistic approach of the research model has asserted LSQ dimensions for further measurement models.

Proposed model may be used as a framework for further studies and can be strengthened by empirically testing in multiple regions of the world. LSQ dimensions may be improved by conducting focus group meetings and additional interviews with logistics professionals from different regions of the world. Additionally, professionals may use these LSQ dimensions as an internal quality indicator and use factors and dimensions as quality key performance metrics. Managers may benefit from the findings to create quality-oriented logistics services or improve existing service models.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

• Logistics service quality

Logistics Services providers

• Service quality

Service performance

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Gamze Arabelen

Dokuz Eylül University, Izmir, Turkey

Hasan Tolga Kaya

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The author HTK analyzed and interpreted the historical research data regarding Logistics Service Quality and conducted descriptive analysis. HTK conducted interviews with business professionals. The author GA, analyzed historical service quality dimensions, developed inferences between historical findings and periodic trends among service quality dimensions, and is a major contributor in writing the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Arabelen, G., Kaya, H.T. Assessment of logistics service quality dimensions: a qualitative approach. J. shipp. trd. 6 , 14 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41072-021-00095-1

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Big data analytics in logistics and supply chain management

The International Journal of Logistics Management

ISSN : 0957-4093

Article publication date: 14 May 2018

Fosso Wamba, S. , Gunasekaran, A. , Papadopoulos, T. and Ngai, E. (2018), "Big data analytics in logistics and supply chain management", The International Journal of Logistics Management , Vol. 29 No. 2, pp. 478-484. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLM-02-2018-0026

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited

Introduction

In recent years, big data analytics (BDA) capability has attracted significant attention from academia and management practitioners. We are living in an era where there has been an explosion of data ( Choi et al. , 2017 ). Kiron et al. (2014) argued that a majority of fortune 1,000 firms is pursuing BDA-related development projects. Chen and Zhang (2014) argued that big data (BD) has enough potential to revolutionize many fields including business, scientific research and public administration and so on. The use of BDA in the field of marketing and finance is on the rise. However, the operations and supply chain professionals are yet to exploit the true potential of the BDA capability in order to improve the supply chain operational decision-making skills ( Srinivasan and Swink, 2017 ). Operations and supply chain professionals have access not only to data, which is continuously generated by traditional devices such as POS, RFID, but also GPS to a vast amount of data generated from unstructured data sources such as digital clickstreams, camera and surveillance footage, imagery, social media postings, blog/wiki entries and forum discussions ( Sanders and Ganeshan, 2015 ). Today, supply chains are highly supported by advanced networking technologies – sensors, tags, tracks and other smart devices, which are gathering data on real-time basis ( Wang et al. , 2016 ; Gunasekaran et al. , 2017 ), which provides end to end demand and supply visibility ( Gunasekaran et al. , 2017 ; Srinivasan and Swink, 2017 ). Schoenherr and Speier-Pero (2015) argued that supply chain managers need to process a large amount of data to make decisions that may help reduce costs and increase the product availability to the customers.

The extant literature defines a BDA capability as a technologically enabled ability which can help process large volume, high velocity and several varieties of data to extract meaningful and useful insights; hereby enabling the organizations to gain competitive advantage ( Fosso Wamba et al. , 2015, 2017 ). Galbraith (2014) further noted that historically, supply chain managers used to analyze data gathered from traditional data warehouses to gain insights. Moreover, Hazen et al. (2014) argued that the effectiveness of decision making in supply chains often hinges upon the quality of the data processed via organizational infrastructure, which enables the supply chain managers to quickly acquire, process and analyze data. Papadopoulos et al. (2017) argued that insights gained via increased information processing capability can reduce uncertainty, especially when operational tasks such as disaster relief operations are highly complex. However, despite increasing efforts from the operations and supply chain community to understand the associations between different types of operational visibility and analytics capabilities, the theory-driven research is limited. Hazen et al. (2016) further outlined how the use of organizational theories can help explain the complexity associated with the use of BDA capability to explain supply chain sustainability. Waller and Fawcett (2013a) noted that the intersection of logistics and supply chain management field with data science, predictive analytics and BD can provide numerous opportunities for research. However, in the absence of adequate skills, the supply chain managers often face a myriad of challenges to extract information from BD to take effective supply chain operational decisions (Waller and Fawcett, 2013a; Dubey and Gunasekaran, 2015a ; Gupta and George, 2016 ). The role of contextual factors in developing BDA capability is well discussed in the information systems literature. What is less understood is how BDA under the effect of contextual factors affect logistics and supply chain processes. Waller and Fawcett (2013b) argued that recent experience with BD may help to explain some of the complex phenomena and unanswered questions in logistics and supply chain management.

The main objective of this special issue (SI) is to provide a significant opportunity to the logistics and supply chain management community to affect practice through fundamental research on how BDA capability can be exploited by the organizations to provide logistics and supply chain insights.

Review of articles included in the SI

Our SI attracted 44 submissions. Each manuscript was examined to ensure that it was in line with our stated objectives in the published call for papers. We desk rejected some of the papers which failed to meet our objectives or the objectives of the International Journal of Logistics Management (IJLM). Next, the manuscripts which were in line with our SI and IJLM objectives, as well as fit for the next round, were submitted for review to two or more experts per manuscript. Based on the reviewers’ and guest editors’ review, we rejected or invited the authors to undertake substantial revision based on the reviewers’ inputs. Finally, after multiple rounds of review, we finally accepted 13 papers for our SI. All accepted papers in this SI are in line with our and IJLM objectives. The papers that are included in this: Dubey et al. (2018) , Jeble et al. (2017) , Song et al. (2018) , Brinch et al. (2018) , Hopkins and Hawking (2018) , Gravili et al. (2018) , Lamba and Singh (2018) , Gupta et al. (2018) , Lai et al. (2018) , Hoehle et al. (2018) , Bhattacharjya et al. (2018) , Hofmann and Rutschmann (2018) and Queiroz and Telles (2018) .

The first paper in this SI is on the application of big data and predictive analytics (BDPA) on humanitarian supply chains by Dubey et al. (2018) . This paper examines what the antecedents of BDPA are. Second, how the BDPA can improve the visibility of humanitarian supply chains and coordination among the actors in humanitarian supply chains. Third, the authors examine the moderating role of swift trust on the path joining BDPA and visibility/coordination. To answer these research questions, the authors have grounded their model in contingent resource-based view (CRBV). In addition, the authors have tested their theoretical model using survey data gathered from informants at international NGOs that are engaged in disaster relief operations. The findings of the study offer some interesting contributions to BD, predictive analytics literature and swift-trust theory. Furthermore, it offers numerous directions to the managers who are engaged in disaster relief operations.

The second paper in this SI is on the application of BDPA on supply chain sustainability by Jeble et al. (2017) . This paper examines what the resources needed to build BDPA capability are. Second, the paper examines how BDPA affects the supply chain sustainability under the moderating effect of supply base complexity. To answer these research questions, the authors grounded their model in the CRBV. The authors also tested their model using data gathered via the single-informant instrument. The findings of the study contribute to the growing debate surrounding BD, predictive analytics and supply chain sustainability.

The third paper in this SI is on the use of large data sets to examine the impact of financial restrictions on green innovation capability in the context of the global supply chain by Song et al. (2018) . In this study, the authors have proposed a linear relationship between green innovation as a dependent variable; green supply chain integration and financial restriction as dependent variables. The study utilized customs, import and export data from 222,773 Chinese enterprises to test their proposed model. The findings suggest that greater supply chain integration and relaxation in financial restriction will boost the green innovation initiative of these firms. The study contributes to the prior research calls of scholars (see Waller and Fawcett, 2013a ; Wang et al. , 2016 ), and how BDPA can be used to advance existing debates surrounding SCM.

The fourth paper in this SI is an exploratory study which aims to understand how supply chain practitioners view BD and its application in supply chain management by Brinch et al. (2018). In this study, the authors have used mixed research methods to address their research questions. First, the authors used the Delphi technique to understand the extent to which the supply chain practitioners were familiar with the application of BD in SCM. They further ranked the applications of BD in the SCOR process framework. The authors also supported the Delphi study via cross-sectional data gathered using the survey-based instrument. The study provides an in-depth understanding of the various applications of BD in SCM. Second, the authors explore how BD applications in various stages in the supply chain can help the firm gain a competitive advantage. The study provides numerous directions for further research, which may help to expand logistics and supply chain management literature.

The fifth paper in this SI investigates the application of BDA and IoT in logistics by Hopkins and Hawking (2018) . In this study, the authors have tried to develop a theoretical framework using a case study approach to understanding how logistics firms use BDA and IoT to support strategies to improve driver safety, reduce operating costs and reduce the negative effects of automobiles on the environment. The study provides directions for the logistics companies on how effective deployment of BDA and IoT can address some of the perennial problems of the logistics industry.

The sixth paper in this SI is on the influence of digital divide (DD) and digital alphabetization (DA) on the BD generation in supply chain management by Gravili et al. (2018) . In this study, the authors have investigated the influence of the DD and DA on the BD generation process in order to gain insight into how BD could become a useful tool in the decision-making process of SCM. In addition, the authors have used a systematic literature review to understand the relationship between the literature on BDA, DD and SCM. The authors also explored the vector autoregressive, which is a stochastic technique to capture the linear interdependence between DD (as a part of internet usage) and trade in the context of the European Union. By examining the association between DD and internet acquisitions, a positive and long-lasting impulse response function was revealed, followed by an ascending trend. The findings suggest that a self-multiplying effect is being generated, and it is, in effect, reasonable to assume that the more individuals use the internet, the more electronic acquisitions occur. Thus, the improvement of the BD and SCM process is strongly dependent on the quality of the human factor.

The seventh paper in this SI attempts to develop a theoretical model, which tries to explain how the enablers of BD in operations and supply chain management are associated with each other by Lamba and Singh (2018) . In this study, the authors have used fuzzy TISM to develop a theoretical model and have further examined the causality of the linkages using the DEMATEL technique. These techniques are grounded in graph theory. The current contribution of the authors makes significant strides toward the theoretical advancement of BDA and its application in the operations and supply chain management context. In the future, the proposed model may be tested using longitudinal data.

The eighth paper in this SI examines the role of cloud ERP on organizational performance by Gupta et al. (2018) . Cloud-based ERP enables an organization to pay for the services they need and removes the need to maintain information technology infrastructure. In this paper, the authors have grounded their model in a CRBV and have further tested the role of cloud-based ERP services on supply chain performance and organizational performance, with cross-sectional data collected via a single-informant questionnaire. The findings of the study indicate that cloud ERP has a positive influence on supply chain performance and organizational performance measured in terms of market and financial performance. Furthermore, the study indicates that the supply base complexity has a significant moderating influence on the path joining cloud ERP and market/financial performance. The study contributes to the extant literature and further provides direction to the management practitioners.

The ninth paper in this SI examines the determinants of BDA in logistics and supply chain management by Lai et al. (2018) . The authors have undertaken an extensive literature review of extant literature on BDA and SCM and have further classified the factors into four constructs: technological factors, organizational factors, environmental factors and supply chain characteristics. Furthermore, drawing from the innovation diffusion theory, the authors have proposed their theoretical model using the four constructs, and have further tested the process using single-informant survey data from 210 organizations. The findings of the study suggest that perceived benefits and top management support have a significant influence on the adoption intention. Subsequently, environmental factors such as competitors’ adoption, government policy and supply chain connectivity have a significant moderating effect on the direct relationship between driving factors and the adoption intention. The results offer some interesting contributions to the BDA and SCM literature.

The tenth paper in this SI examines the customer’s tolerance in the context of omnichannel retail stores via logistics and supply chain analytics by Hoehle et al. (2018) . In this study, the authors argued that mobile technologies are increasingly being used as a data source to enable BDA. These BDA enable inventory control and logistics planning for omnichannel businesses. First, the authors in this study introduced three emerging mobile shopping checkout processes in the retail store. Second, they suggested that new validation procedures (i.e. exit inspections) necessary for implementation of mobile technology-enabled checkout processes may disrupt traditional retail service processes. Third, the authors have proposed a construct labeled “tolerance for validation” defined as customer reactions to checkout procedures. The authors have also developed a measurement scale for the proposed construct and gathered data using a structured questionnaire from 239 customers. The statistical analyses suggest that customers have a higher tolerance for validation under scenarios in which mobile technologies are used in the checkout processes, as compared to the traditional self-service scenario in which no mobile technology is used. The customers do not particularly show a clear preference for specific mobile shopping scenarios. Hence, these findings contribute to our understanding of the challenges that omnichannel businesses may face as they leverage data from digital technologies to enhance collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment processes. The proposed construct and measurement scales can be used in future work on omnichannel retailing.

The 11th paper of this SI examines how unstructured data in the form of tweets can be exploited to improve customer service by Bhattacharjya et al. (2018) . In this study, the authors argued that in recent days, the interaction between firms and their customers in the form of tweets have increased. However, these tweets often constitute a large volume and the extraction of valuable information from these unstructured data may offer unique opportunities to understand their customers’ need. The authors have demonstrated the need for tweet analytics via parcel shipping companies and their interactions with customers in Australia, the UK and the USA. The findings from the study contribute to the customer engagement theory. The research provides a unique opportunity for the practitioners, confirming that tweet analytics can be exploited to address other logistics and supply chain activities.

The 12th paper of this SI examines how BDA can be used for forecasting in supply chains by Hofmann and Rutschmann (2018) . In this study, the authors argued that BD can minimize the forecast errors, thereby improving the forecast accuracy. The authors have proposed a conceptual structure based on the design-science paradigm via three steps: description of conceptual elements of the framework utilizing justifiable knowledge; specification of the principles of the theoretical framework to explain the interplay between elements; and creation of a matching framework by conducting investigations within the retail industry. The developed framework could serve as the first guide for meaningful BDA initiatives in the supply chain. This study attempts to offer unique contributions to the forecasting technique via BDA.

The 13th paper of this SI examines the role of BDA in logistics and supply chain by Queiroz and Telles (2018) . In this study, the authors have investigated the role of supply chain partnerships, human knowledge and innovation culture on supply chains in BD environments. The authors have further tested their proposed BDA-SCM triangle using data gathered via single-informant instrument from Brazilian corporations. The study provides an understanding of the barriers related to BDA adoption and the relationship between supply chain levels and BDA knowledge. The authors have further noted their limitations, which offer unique opportunities to the BDA and SCM scholars to build upon current findings.

Limitations and future research directions

When should we use BDPA in SCM?

Under what context can BDPA in SCM be used?

How can predictive analytics be used to advance theory in SCM?

How does BDPA in SCM affect organizational performance and under what circumstances?

How can BDPA be used in inventory planning?

How can BDPA improve information sharing?

How can BDPA be used for facility layout design?

How can BDPA be used in vehicle routing problems?

How can BDPA help to minimize environmental uncertainties?

Hence, we can argue that we need strong predictive analytics capability because consumer behavior has become an integral part of the supply chain ( Waller and Fawcett, 2013b ). Thus, the ability to predict the consumer behavior has implications for product innovation, product manufacturing, distribution, design and demand.

Concluding remarks

The BDA is one of the most promising topics which can provide numerous opportunities for academic and management practitioners. It can be used for building theories which is one of the untapped potentials of the BDPA; even though many scholars often term BDA as one of the management fads. Despite criticisms, we believe that BDA have immense potential to revolutionize existing supply chain theories.

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Hazen , B.T. , Skipper , J.B. , Ezell , J.D. and Boone , C.A. ( 2016 ), “ Big data and predictive analytics for supply chain sustainability: a theory-driven research agenda ”, Computers & Industrial Engineering , Vol. 101 , pp. 592 - 598 .

Hoehle , H. , Aloysius , J.A. , Chan , F. and Venkatesh , V. ( 2018 ), “ Customers’ tolerance for validation in omnichannel retail stores: enabling logistics and supply chain analytics ”, The International Journal of Logistics Management , available at: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLM-08-2017-0219

Hofmann , E. and Rutschmann , E. ( 2018 ), “ Big data analytics and demand forecasting in supply chains: a conceptual analysis ”, The International Journal of Logistics Management , available at: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLM-04-2017-0088

Hopkins , J. and Hawking , P. ( 2018 ), “ Big data analytics and IoT in logistics: a case study ”, The International Journal of Logistics Management , available at: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLM-05-2017-0109

Jeble , S. , Dubey , R. , Childe , S.J. , Papadopoulos , T. , Roubaud , D. and Prakash , A. ( 2017 ), “ Impact of big data & predictive analytics capability on supply chain sustainability ”, The International Journal of Logistics Management , available at: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLM-05-2017-0134

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Lamba , K. and Singh , S.P. ( 2018 ), “ Modeling big data enablers for operations and supply chain management ”, The International Journal of Logistics Management , available at: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLM-07-2017-0183

Papadopoulos , T. , Gunasekaran , A. , Dubey , R. , Altay , N. , Childe , S.J. and Fosso-Wamba , S. ( 2017 ), “ The role of big data in explaining disaster resilience in supply chains for sustainability ”, Journal of Cleaner Production , Vol. 142 , pp. 1108 - 1118 .

Queiroz , M.M. and Telles , R. ( 2018 ), “ Big data analytics in supply chain and logistics: an empirical approach ”, The International Journal of Logistics Management , available at: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLM-05-2017-0116

Sanders , N.R. and Ganeshan , R. ( 2015 ), “ Special issue of production and operations management on ‘big data in supply chain management’ ”, Production and Operations Management , Vol. 24 No. 7 , pp. 1193 - 1194 .

Schoenherr , T. and Speier‐Pero , C. ( 2015 ), “ Data science, predictive analytics, and big data in supply chain management: current state and future potential ”, Journal of Business Logistics , Vol. 36 No. 1 , pp. 120 - 132 .

Srinivasan , R. and Swink , M. ( 2017 ), “ An investigation of visibility and flexibility as complements to supply chain analytics: an organizational information processing theory perspective ”, Production and Operations Management , doi: 10.1111/poms.12746 .

Song , M. , Chen , M. and Wang , S. ( 2018 ), “ Global supply chain integration, financing restrictions, and green innovation: analysis based on 222,773 samples ”, The International Journal of Logistics Management , available at: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLM-03-2017-0072

Waller , M.A. and Fawcett , S.E. ( 2013a ), “ Data science, predictive analytics, and big data: a revolution that will transform supply chain design and management ”, Journal of Business Logistics , Vol. 34 No. 2 , pp. 77 - 84 .

Waller , M.A. and Fawcett , S.E. ( 2013b ), “ Click here for a data scientist: big data, predictive analytics, and theory development in the era of a maker movement supply chain ”, Journal of Business Logistics , Vol. 34 No. 4 , pp. 249 - 252 .

Wang , G. , Gunasekaran , A. , Ngai , E.W. and Papadopoulos , T. ( 2016 ), “ Big data analytics in logistics and supply chain management: certain investigations for research and applications ”, International Journal of Production Economics , Vol. 176 , pp. 98 - 110 .

Further reading

Chae , B.K. ( 2015 ), “ Insights from hashtag♯ supplychain and Twitter analytics: considering Twitter and Twitter data for supply chain practice and research ”, International Journal of Production Economics , Vol. 165 , pp. 247 - 259 .

Dubey , R. and Gunasekaran , A. ( 2015b ), “ The role of truck driver on sustainable transportation and logistics ”, Industrial and Commercial Training , Vol. 47 No. 3 , pp. 127 - 134 .

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A Systematic Literature Review of Green and Sustainable Logistics: Bibliometric Analysis, Research Trend and Knowledge Taxonomy

1 College of Defense Engineering, Army Engineering University of PLA, Nanjing 210042, China; moc.361@1080iurner (R.R.); moc.361.piv@lz-nehC (Z.C.)

2 College of Civil Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing 211816, China; moc.361@9708obnus

Jianjun Dong

3 Research Institute for National Defense Engineering of Academy of Military Science PLA China, Beijing 100850, China; moc.liamxof@xdgl-cyc

Zhilong Chen

Ever-growing globalization and industrialization put forward impending requirements for green and sustainable logistics (G&SL). Over the past decades, G&SL initiatives triggered worldwide deliberations, aiming at easing negative transport externalities and improving supply chain performance. This review-based paper attempts to offer a joint quantitative and qualitative understanding for the overall evolutionary trend, knowledge structure, and literature gaps of the G&SL research field. Employing the science mapping approach, a total of 306 major paper published from 1999 to 2019 were retrieved, elaborated on, and synthesized. Visualized statistics regarding publication years, journal allocation/co-citation, inter-country/institution collaboration, influential articles, co-occurred keywords, and time view clusters of research themes were analyzed bibliographically. On this basis, a total of 50 sub-branches of G&SL knowledge were classified and thematically discussed based on five alignments, namely (i) social-environmental-economic research, (ii) planning, policy and management, (iii) application and practice, (iv) technology, and (v) operations research. Finally, the current knowledge obstacles and the future research opportunities were suggested. The findings contribute to portray a systematic intellectual prospect for the state quo, hotspots, and academic frontiers of G&SL research. Moreover, it provides researchers and practitioners with heuristic thoughts to govern transportation ecology and logistics service quality.

1. Introduction

Sustainable development has inspired many green and sustainable logistics (G&SL) activities to reduce the negative effects of freight transportation [ 1 ] and improve positive environmental and social feedbacks. From long-haul heavy-duty logistics to intra-city distribution, road-based freight transportation systems generate tremendous negative externalities in daily operations [ 2 ], including pollutant emissions, congestion, traffic accidents, noise, visual interference, infrastructure failure and resource waste [ 3 ]. Moreover, these negative externalities, together with the disadvantages of logistics system itself (e.g., limited intelligentization, personnel dependence and vulnerability [ 4 ]), further lead to the downgrade of supply chain performance at both enterprise level and regional level. With the rapid growth of logistics demand, the damage grows exponentially, which will eventually bring irreversible impacts to the economy and the whole ecosystem [ 5 ].

The operation management of physical distribution is one of the most significant and challenging sub-issues of the macro supply chain management (SCM) [ 6 ], because it involves real-time scheduling and coordination of hundreds of thousands of packages and containerized goods under a dynamic logistics scenario [ 7 ]. G&SL is defined as the planning, control, management, and implementation of logistics system through the advanced logistics technologies and environmental management, aiming to reduce pollutant emissions and improve logistics efficiency [ 8 ]. G&SL is not only concerned with providing customers with green products or services [ 9 ], but also with the green and sustainability of the entire lifecycle of the logistics process [ 10 ]. Various green logistics modes, activities, and behaviors were proposed and gradually realized from government rules to technological innovations. For example, the construction of green logistics network [ 11 , 12 , 13 ], reverse logistics [ 14 ], emission control [ 15 ], electric freight vehicle [ 16 ], modal shift and multimodal transportation [ 17 ], energy efficiency [ 18 ], collaboration [ 19 , 20 ], outsourcing [ 21 , 22 ], etc. A wide range of topics related to G&SL yielded substantial academic results and considerable practical performance. However, G&SL is still in its infancy and is far from meeting the challenges posed by the complexity of internal cooperation and uncertainties of external markets [ 1 ].

Previous studies reviewed G&SL from different perspectives. By reviewing 115 papers, Zhang et al. [ 10 ] analyzed the combinatorial optimization problems and swarm intelligence technique applied in improving G&SL performance. Qaiser et al. [ 23 ] conducted some brief statistics on the bibliometric information of 40 papers on G&SL. Bask and Rajahonka [ 8 ] mainly reviewed the role of environmental sustainability in multimodal freight transport decision-making. Based on 56 papers, Mangiaracina et al. [ 24 ] summarized the impact of business-to-customer transportation process on the environment. Arvidsson et al. [ 25 ] reviewed the sustainable measures for improving urban distribution efficiency. Pourhejazy and Kwon [ 26 ] conducted a survey on 380 articles published from 2005–2016 and revealed the application status of operations research technique in the supply chain optimization. The literature of green SCM was classified and reviewed by Srivastava [ 4 ] from a reverse logistics angle. This work was further enriched by Fahimnia et al. [ 27 ], who investigated the bibliographical information and trend of a majority of green SCM research through article co-citation network and keywords co-occurrence network.

However, based on the time of publication and the number of papers contained, the existing studies are outdated and incomplete, unable to provide a comprehensive analysis of the booming G&SL research in the past two years. Also, it is more difficult to integrate the multitudinous research directions to build a complete knowledge structure for G&SL. Therefore, it is of great theoretical and practical significance to objectively and quantitatively investigate the overall progress of G&SL.

This study aims to conduct a comprehensive review of the global G&SL literature, so as to explore the state-of-the-art, hotspots and research trend, as well as to build the G&SL knowledge classification system. Specifically, first, tracking and analyzing the evolution of the G&SL research field from (i) publication year and journals; (ii) countries, regions, and organizations; (iii) influential documents; (iv) keywords clustering and research themes. Second, establishing the knowledge taxonomy based on the scientometric results. Third, identifying the research gaps and the future research opportunities.

The novelty of this study lies in two aspects. One is to integrate the science mapping approach into the systematic literature review process to visualize the relationships among the G&SL literature. Science mapping approach is composed of data mining and bibliographic analysis, which can minimize subjective arbitrariness and grasp useful information to facilitate in-depth thematic analysis. Another is that this study further extends the bibliography to illuminate the emerging knowledge branches, gaps, and agendas in G&SL research, which will contribute to the improvement of G&SL practice and research innovation. The findings are expected to provide researchers and practitioners with a panoramic description and in-depth understanding of G&SL research. Additionally, the proposed knowledge structure can also be used as a handbook-like tool to further collect, analyze, and expand knowledge in the G&SL field and to provide references for other innovative logistics initiatives.

The rest is organized as follows. In Section 2 , the outline of research method is introduced. Section 3 presents the results of the data collection and the results of five parts of scientometric analysis. Section 4 proposes the taxonomy of G&SL research based on the keywords clustering and discusses the knowledge branches in detail. The current research gaps and agenda are also identified. Section 5 summarizes the major findings and limitations.

2. Research Method

2.1. overview of review protocol.

This review-based study conducted a systematic investigation on the academic development of global G&SL research with the aids of science mapping. Science mapping is a quantitative analysis approach that uses mathematical statistics and visualization techniques to study bibliographic networks (e.g., academics, institutions, themes, keywords, and journals) in a specific field [ 28 ]. This approach has been widely applied in many academic fields, such as sustainable transportation [ 29 ], environment science [ 30 ], city logistics [ 31 ] and waste management [ 32 ] and can directly synthesize salient findings from the existing knowledge system.

Figure 1 illustrates the detailed research process, consisting of three steps.

The flowchart of reviewing G&SL literature.

In step 1, the statistics was obtained after a comprehensive retrieval from two electronic databases, Web of Science (WoS) core and Scopus. Two rounds of selection were then performed to refine, classify, and encode the documents. The year publication trend, journal allocation and the most cited articles were described.

Four scientometric tests were carried out in step 2, namely (i) Journal co-citation analysis : to identify the most cited journals and the research domains they belong to. This analysis helps to reveal the distribution of published journals and cited journals of the reviewed documents, so as to identify popular journals in G&SL research domain. (ii) Countries/organizations collaboration analysis : to visualize the collaborative research network of G&SL among countries and organizations, so that the readers can quickly understand the partnerships between major research communities and institutions around the world. (iii) Document co-citation analysis : to highlight the influential G&SL articles and the corresponding reference relationships. By analysis of the papers with high citation, the emerging trend of scholars’ research interest to G&SL is easier to grasp. (iv) Keywords co-occurrence analysis : to map out the co-occurred time zone of the hotspots G&SL keywords and cluster them into several research themes. Network analysis of co-occurred keywords is used to clarify the knowledge structure of G&SL as well as to present the research hotspots and potential research opportunities in the future.

In step 3, the hierarchical knowledge structure of G&SL was proposed for thematic discussion.

The text mining software VOSviewer was adopted for science mapping, combining with another software CiteSpace to portray the time view of the clustered keywords based on the same data. VOSviewer, developed by van Eck and Waltman [ 33 ], is a comprehensive bibliometric analysis tool based on Visualization of Similarities (VOS) technology, which has unique advantages in clustering fragmented knowledge from different domains according to their similarity and relatedness. In the visualized networks, a node signifies a particular bibliographic item, such as organization, country, keyword or reference, etc. The node size represents the counting of the evaluated item namely citation or occurrence. Link denotes the co-citation, co-occurrence or collaboration relationship. The metric, total link strength (TLS), is outputted automatically by the software to reflect the correlation degree between any two nodes in the generated networks. A higher value of TLS, the higher importance and centrality of the item has [ 31 ]. Nodes with a high similarity were clustered together and distinguished by colors with other clusters, while the nodes with low similarity should be separated as far as possible. The similarity matrix can be calculated by Formula (1), where c ij is the co-occurred or co-cited times of item i and item j , W i and W j denote the node sizes of item i and item j respectively [ 33 ]. The stopping criterion of VOSviewer mapping is the minimal sum of weighted Euclidean distances of all items in each cluster [ 34 ], which can be expressed by Formula (2), where x i and x j are the positions of the nodes.

For a detailed operation manual of bibliographical experiments using science mapping approach, readers are advised to refer Jin et al. [ 28 ] and Hu et al. [ 31 ].

2.2. Literature Retrieval and Selection

The advanced retrieval function in Scopus and WoS core collection database was used to retrieve the G&SL related papers published during 1999 to August 2019 (see Table 1 ). To ensure the quality of the literature, the document types were restricted to research articles, while other types such as the conference proceeding, book chapter, letter or editorial material were excluded. The preliminary search yielded 1160 records. These records were imported into EndNote software for the first-round inspection to filter out duplicates and unqualified records in forms (e.g., article length and integrity). Additionally, those completely and partially irrelevant studies were removed. For example, an article entitled “Using logistics regression to analyze the sustainable procurement performance of large supply chain enterprises” was not the desired result. A total of 397 records were left after the first-round inspection. Then, the second-round selection was carried out by carefully reading the abstract of each document. The inclusion and exclusion criteria for this round focused on whether the document was consistent with the research topic, i.e., with green logistics initiatives, practices. and other G&SL innovations, rather than broader research, such as production, manufacturing or urban transportation. Unless it has a strong relation with G&SL. In particular, the following topics were excluded: (i) green design on the specialized logistics technology e.g., biomass and biofuel; (ii) business competition and (iii) offshoring and lean production. Finally, 91 records were removed, leaving 306 full-length articles in our review portfolio.

Results of literature retrieval and selection.

3. Scientometric Experiments and Analysis

3.1. chronological publication trend.

Figure 2 displays the number of papers published annually from 1999–2019 in the portfolio. Obviously, research on G&SL was virtually stagnant until 2009, and since 2010, it has increased significantly year by year. By 2018, a staggering 62 articles were searchable. The vigorous development of academic research indicates the expansion of the scope and branch of G&SL. Furthermore, from the publication number and the recent discussed topics of G&SL, it is evident that the public awareness, market acceptance, social demand and real-world practice of sustainable logistics measures are undergoing remarkable ascent.

Year profile of indexed documents.

3.2. Journal Allocation and Co-Citation Analysis

All 306 documents were found in 81 different journals. As shown in Figure 3 , the top 15 journals contributed 155 papers, accounting for 51% of the total. The impact factors of journals were also attached based on the Journal Citation Reports (2018). Sustainability ranks first (35, 11.4%), followed by Journal of Cleaner Production (24, 7.8%), Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment (17, 5.6%) and International Journal of Production Economics (13, 4.2%). Among the top 15 journals, eight are from UK, four from The Netherlands, two from Switzerland, and one from Germany. The papers are mainly distributed in the three academic fields of environment, traffic engineering and operations management, but they obviously account for a larger proportion in the environmental science and sustainable field, which is in line with the connotation of G&SL.

Rank of journals in G&SL publication number.

As shown in Figure 4 , among the 12,408 references (corresponding to 2349 different journals), a network of 46 items and 1025 links was formed by identifying the journals that had been cited more than 50 times. In general, the journals that influenced G&SL research are concentrated in three interrelated clusters. First is the operations research (OR), such as European Journal of Operational Research (TLS = 13,076, citation = 494), International Journal of Production Research (TLS = 252, citation = 8260), Expert Systems with Applications (TLS = 4748, citation = 153), Omega (TLS = 5139, citation = 150) and Computers & Operations Research (TLS = 4234, citation = 137), which can offer quantitative methods for the decision-making and optimization issues related to G&SL. The second cluster is transportation research (TR), such as Transportation Research Part A (TLS = 2057, citation = 103), Part D (TLS = 3883, citation = 176), Part E (TLS = 7576, citation = 260), and Journal of Transport Geography (TLS = 2089, citation = 91), which accumulates enormous knowledge towards transportation planning, technology and operations that can enlighten G&SL research from real-life transport demand and practice. The third cluster, including Supply Chain Management (TLS = 6546, citation = 232), International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management (TLS = 6357, citation = 235) and Journal of Business Logistics (TLS = 2837, citation = 96), etc., reveals that a large amount of G&SL research was conducted based on the research foundation of logistics and supply chain management (SCM). Among all the publications, Journal of Cleaner Production (TLS = 13,799, citation = 555) and International Journal of Production Economics (TLS = 13,903, citation = 495) are the two most co-cited journals. They often act as hubs, integrating the results of OR, TR and SCM with social, environment or economic implications to provide cross-domain knowledge crucial to the diverse development of G&SL.

Mapping of the journals co-cited.

3.3. Countries/Organizations Collaboration Analysis

Table 2 lists the countries or regions that are actively studying G&SL, showing six measurements, including number of publications (NP), TLS, average citation year, total citations, average citation per country/region, and average normalized citation. The average normalized citation was calculated by dividing the total number of citations by the average number of citations published per year [ 34 ]. Figure 5 displays the collaboration network among countries and regions. The minimum number of documents and citations for a country was set at 5 and 30 respectively. Finally, a map with 25 items and 58 links was generated.

Mapping of countries/regions contribute to G&SL research.

Summaries of countries/regions active in G&LS research.

According to Table 2 , G&SL research is widely distributed, especially in Europe, Asia, and North America, which is a field of worldwide concern. Mainland China has the most publications, but the United States has the highest total citation. Other countries/regions such as Italy, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan present a lower number of publications; however, they keep significant figures of average normalized citation which can strongly express their high influence. Besides, most of the documents contributed by these countries/regions were published in the last three years, which means they are playing an increasingly active role in promoting G&SL.

Two evidence can be observed from Figure 5 . First, based on a partnership, the global G&SL research is divided into four communities. Therein, two communities are leaded by European counties, such as UK, Spain, The Netherlands, and Italy, while the other two communities are “Mainland China-Hong Kong-Singapore” and “United States-India-Australia-Portugal-Taiwan”, dominated by China and USA, respectively.

Second, the international collaboration is not significant. Taking mainland China for instance, about 70 percent of 49 publications are completed entirely by domestic institutions. The Swedish publications do not have any co-authors from other countries or regions. This phenomenon may be due to the large differences in the background and model of G&SL development in different countries [ 35 ]. Moreover, the knowledge gap caused by the wide extension of G&SL and the scattered knowledge structure make the research still focus on the respective fields of researchers, such as sustainable development [ 36 ], environment governance [ 37 ] and transportation planning [ 38 ]. Therefore, at present, the cooperation between academic institutions of different backgrounds has not been widely carried out.

Among the 402 organizations that contributed to G&SL research, those with more than five documents and over 30 citations were built into a network of 22 items and 22 links, as shown in Figure 6 . None of the organizations published more than 10 papers (3% of 306) and the studies were relatively independent. Therefore, it can be argued that no organization has yet been able to lead G&SL research so far. However, some of the institutions located in Asia Pacific and Europe have a higher reputation in G&SL due to higher citations, including the Hong Kong Polytechnic university (Hong Kong, 388 citations), Wageningen University (The Netherlands, 370 citations), Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece, 324 citations), National Chiao Tung University (Taiwan, 330 citations), Iowa State University (USA, 206 citations), University California Berkeley (USA, 160 citations) and Nanyang Technological University (Singapore, 137 citations). In addition, Figure 6 also shows insufficient collaborative research across organizations.

Mapping of global collaboration network among organizations.

3.4. Influential Research Highlight

Through the document co-citation test of the portfolio, the most influential G&SL publications in the past two decades were analyzed and the co-citation network was constructed. In VOSviewer, the minimum number of citations was set to 30 to build a co-cited visual network map of 83 items and 350, as shown in Figure 7 . The nodes in the map denote the documents that were identified by the first author name and the publication year. The colors of the nodes and the links represent the time of publication and the time of two documents that are co-cited, respectively. The co-occurrence of the literature shows an obvious type of “local concentration and overall dispersion”, indicating that some G&SL studies were widely recognized and produced some common ideas and results. Most papers with high citation appeared around 2010, which was a landmark year for G&SL research. The co-citation time series indicate that G&SL knowledge spreads faster and faster.

Mapping of the influential documents and their co-citation relationship.

The top 15 most cited papers are presented in Table 3 , showing their publication year, title, TLS, citation counts and topics. The most cited study was by Dekker et al. [ 39 ], one of the first methodological studies to link the operations research knowledge (such as design, planning, and control) to the field of green logistics. The second is Sheu et al. [ 40 ], whose main contribution is to propose a modeling technique for sustainable logistics operations and management decisions to maximize supply chain profits. These were followed by papers by Lai and Wong [ 41 ] and Ubeda et al. [ 42 ], which focused on using the scenario-based approaches, such as the questionnaire and case study, to evaluate the environmental performance of green logistics practices. The main topics of other highlighted documents involve: (i) management insights from industrial practices [ 43 , 44 ]; (ii) multi-criteria evaluation system for green logistics (e.g., policy [ 45 ], environment [ 46 ], and transportation planning [ 47 ]); (iii) network facilities design and optimization [ 48 , 49 ]; (iv) reverse logistics [ 50 , 51 ]; and (v) enterprise responsibility and third-party logistics [ 52 ].

List of publications with the highest impact in G&SL.

3.5. Keywords Co-Occurrence Analysis

The keywords co-occurrence analysis was conducted to describe the internal composition and structure of G&SL and to reveal the frontiers [ 31 ]. The options “All Keywords” and “Full Counting” in VOSviewer analysis were checked to obtain a holistic intellectual landscape of G&SL research. Before the scientometric test, the keywords, such as “third-party logistics providers” versus “3PL”, “transport” versus “transportation”, which are necessary due to differences in expression, were manually simplified on the original data file. The minimum occurrences of each keyword was set to 4, forming a network of 112 nodes representing keywords (1455 keywords in all documents) and 2067 links, as shown in Figure 8 .

Mapping of co-occurred keywords.

Figure 8 displays the mainstream of research keywords in G&SL and their co-occurrence relationships. Divide these keywords into four clusters and distinguish them with different colors. Therein, Cluster #1 contains 18 items focusing on the practice and management of logistics sustainability (e.g., collaboration, case study and intermodal transportation), while Cluster #2 covers 25 items, concentrating on the environmental issues of freight transport, such as carbon emission, energy consumption and lifecycle assessment. Cluster #3 (34 items) and Cluster #4 (34 items) emphasize on the “model, planning and optimization” as well as the “supply chain performance, development strategy and competitiveness”, respectively.

Table 4 shows the detailed information of the significant keywords. The top 10 most frequently studied and highly connected terms are sustainability (Feq. = 80, TSL = 547), green supply chain (Feq. = 68, TSL = 629), management (Feq. = 58, TSL = 411), model (Feq. = 55, TSL = 394), green logistics (Feq. = 48, TSL = 325), performance (Feq. = 47, TSL = 367), logistics (Feq. = 46, TSL = 299), framework (Feq. = 43, TSL = 356), impact (Feq. = 41, TSL = 312) and reverse logistics (Feq. = 39, TSL = 323). These keywords play a critical role in forming G&SL research topics and connecting major branches of knowledge. According to the metric of average citations, the following keywords, including transportation, environmental sustainability, production, reverse logistics, and efficiency, aroused a lot of attention.

Summaries of significant keywords and theme clusters of G&SL research.

Keyword co-occurrence network is a static expression of a particular area that does not take into account changes over time in the manner that the terms are used [ 54 ]. Figure 9 shows a time zone view of keywords that occur more than eight from 1999 to 2019. Each term is arranged in chronological order to present the trend and interaction of keywords. Studies on management, model and green supply chains had been published extensively before 2005 and had been going for a long time, showing that these early topics are still the hotspots of current research. In contrast, articles related to collaboration, transportation planning, modal shift and stakeholder were published from 2015 to 2017, which are emerging themes discussed frequently in recent years and may become the hotspots of future research. Additionally, a large proportion of the keywords were proposed between 2007 and 2015, indicating that G&SL research was greatly enriched during this period. Table 4 presents the time span of all highlighted keywords.

A time zone view of clustered research themes: 1999-2019.

4. Discussion

4.1. knowledge taxonomy of current research.

Through the aforementioned analysis, the research progress, evolutionary trend, and hot-discussed topics of global G&SL are clarified. However, the generic scientometric results cannot accurately reflect the explicit division of the multifarious knowledge of a domain [ 31 ]. Based on the clustering analysis of high-frequency keywords, a comprehensive taxonomy of G&SL knowledge from 1999 to 2019 was further proposed, and each separated branch was thematically discussed in-depth subsequently. Topics with similar attributes were integrated into different categories of themes and manually renamed to make the taxonomy more compact and easy to understand. Figure 10 demonstrates the mind mapping of G&SL research themes, where a total of 5 alignments and 50 sub-branches are assembled. The number of representative articles of each theme was also attached.

The knowledge taxonomy of G&SL themes.

4.1.1. Evaluation on the Social, Environmental and Economic Impacts of G&SL Initiatives

Nearly a quarter of the literature (71 out of 306 papers) focused on evaluating and quantifying how the potential green logistics initiatives improve the “triple bottom line” (i.e., social, environmental and economic performance, SEE) of existing freight activities. The subjects of these studies were basically originated from four aspects: carbon emission, energy consumption, social sustainability, and external cost-and-benefit. Mattila and Antikainen [ 15 ] provided a backcasting method for the long-term prediction of greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel consumption in long-distance freight transport, considering the sustainable goals and policies developed by the EU governments. Similar research was conducted for assessing the U.S. scenario [ 46 ]. A questionnaire survey conducted by Makan and Heyns [ 55 ] found that the pressures from consumer, brand protection, top management, and cost-saving and revenue are the major drivers for freight organizations to implement the sustainable initiatives. Khan et al. [ 56 ] modeled the impact of G&SL performance on the countries’ economic development and macro-level social and environmental indicators. Papoutsis et al. [ 57 ] and Solomon et al. [ 58 ] both maintained that logistics sustainability is closely related to operational efficiency and social acceptance from an economic and environmental perspective. Through the expert scoring, Morana and Gonzalez-Feliu [ 59 ] identified the most prominent factors affecting the sustainability of urban logistics are monetary saving, services quality, and customers’ satisfaction rate (economic), pollution emissions and congestions (environmental), and the number of employment created/destroyed (social). Social and environmental activities play a more important role in promoting sustainable logistics than financial-economic activities [ 60 ]. Rashidi and Cullinane [ 61 ] found that the national logistics industry with high SEE index has the following features: (i) well-planned logistics network infrastructure; (ii) high quality of service operators; (iii) shipments tracing technology; and (iv) efficient timetable scheduling.

Another part of emphasis was given to SEE performance of G&SL based on logistics operations and business. Guo and Ma [ 62 ] evaluated the energy consumption and emission level under different logistics business modes, concluding that the third-party logistics provider and the joint distribution modes have obvious environmental advantages in developing green urban distribution. Wang et al. [ 63 ] found that green logistics performance would impose positive effects to the exporting countries in the international trade. Herold and Lee [ 64 ] investigated the carbon reports disclosed by some giant international logistics enterprises, e.g., UPS, FedX and DHL, and compared their sustainability-related strategies, namely legitimacy-seeking arguments versus energy and emission reduction. In addition, a variety of qualitative analysis measures, such as fuzzy multi-criteria evaluation modeling [ 65 ], data envelopment analysis [ 66 ], and analytic hierarchy processes [ 67 ] were also widely applied to illuminate the logic between SEE performance and G&SL.

Except for the three-dimensional evaluation system, some scholars also analyzed the critical success factors and barriers for G&SL initiative implementation from the SEE perspectives. For instance, Arslan and Sar [ 68 ] found that the managers’ intention towards green logistics initiatives is generally determined by the environmental attitude, perceived behavior control and subjective norm. Besides, government subsidizes [ 69 ] and internalization of externalities [ 70 , 71 ] were considered to be the effective models to reduce negative external cost in the logistics industry, thus promoting the greening process of the logistics market.

4.1.2. Planning, Policy and Management Research of G&SL

This knowledge branch focuses on two basic G&SL topics, (i) the planning, development, and policymaking from industrial level, and (ii) the collaboration strategy and management from project level. For the former, Lindholm and Blinge [ 2 ] indicated that the public support, stakeholder partnership, and excellent management skills are the most significant factors to achieve sustainable development of the logistics industry. The coordination among metropolitan economy, logistics infrastructure investment, and industrial chain upgrading is the essential foundation of G&SL [ 36 ]. Integrating freight activities into the general planning procedure or transport planning is also considered important for the implementation of G&SL. Shankar et al. [ 72 ] quantified the dynamic uncertainties and intrinsic sustainability risks of freight transport and stated that most of the risks were socially induced rather than financially driven. The risks of multimodal green logistics were analyzed by Kengpol and Tuammee [ 73 ]. A system dynamics simulation conducted by Sudarto et al. [ 74 ] revealed that the economic performance of G&SL is directly affected by freight policy, while environmental performance is indirectly affected. Klumpp [ 75 ] proposed two strategies to develop green logistics, namely encouraging public investment and imposing heavy taxes on carbon raw materials.

For the latter, the collaboration and game among logistics service providers (LSP), government, shippers, and enterprises are paid more attention. Commonly, a positive cooperation strategy of stakeholders will significantly improve the operational performance of G&SL [ 76 ] and even the entire supply chain [ 19 ]. Therein, the benefits brought by the collaboration between suppliers and customers [ 77 ] and LSPs-shippers [ 78 ] are particularly salient. The government plays a dominant role in the knowledge dissemination [ 79 ] and economic incentive of greenization [ 20 ], leading to the innovation of logistics technology. Moreover, the shippers’ willingness to pay for G&SL products [ 80 ], the exploitation of green logistics knowledge [ 81 ], as well as the gaps between green logistics demand and supply [ 82 ] also aroused research attention.

Furthermore, several novel business and operational modes of logistics aiming at improving the sustainability in transportation process were proposed, e.g., freight consolidation [ 83 ], smart logistics [ 22 ], and low emissions zones [ 84 ]. The most hotly debated topics are outsourcing and crowd shipping (CS). CS, proposed for the last-mile delivery problem, is a concept that means the parcels and passengers are co-transported along a passenger trip [ 85 ]. According to Ameknassi et al. [ 86 ], freight transportation, warehousing, and reverse logistics are the three major outsourced logistics activities. The outsourcing strategy has proven to be advantageous in reducing energy use, global warming, and supply chain risk, compared with common logistics operations [ 87 ].

4.1.3. Real-World Application Areas and Practices

Over the past decade, research on the G&SL practices were carried out over a broad range, including SCM, reverse logistics (RL), e-commerce, urban distribution, multimodal transport, and other dedicated logistics such as food [ 88 ] and manufacturing [ 89 ]. Much valuable experience and instructions can be obtained from real-world applications. For example, the unsustainability of the supply chain is largely due to the poor logistics practices in the downstream [ 90 ], which specifically refers to transport operation delay [ 91 ], poor communication [ 91 ] and the lack of effective management of carbon footprint [ 92 ]. A sustainable SCM is an effective measure to improve the competitiveness, financial and environmental performance of logistics enterprises. However, this is not absolute, Hazen et al. [ 93 ] believe that some green SCM practices might not necessarily lead to competitive advantage, but make users feel that they are getting low-quality products.

Reverse logistics is convincingly one of the most efficient solutions to reduce environmental pollution and waste of resources by capturing and recovering the values of the used products [ 94 ]. Legislation, social image, corporate citizenship, and market competence force enterprises to integrate RL into their supply chains [ 95 ]. In real-world application, improving RL sustainability and greening process is the primary goal to optimize the overall supply chain performance. Our review found that most green-related RL studies focused on the network design [ 96 ] and system planning [ 14 ]. Other topics are waste recycling management [ 97 ], benefits assessment [ 98 ], reverse operations outsourcing [ 99 ] and social responsibility [ 50 ].

The unsustainability of urban logistics makes it the most urgent goal of greening. Huge logistics demand, such as rapid business-to-business and business-to-customer logistics activities, make freight transportation in big cities face the dilemma of air pollution, poor accessibility, and livability [ 31 ]. The practice of integrating green logistics planning into smart cities construction has been carried out for a long time, especially in Europe, mainly including last-mile delivery [ 100 ], traffic management [ 101 ] and lean logistics [ 102 ].

Compared with G&SL in urban domain, the sustainability issues regarding inter-city or regional logistics are more emphasized on the intermodal application. The shift of road-based modal to other transportation system, such as rail and water has the potentials of ensuring environmental sustainability, flexibility, and cost reduction [ 17 ]. However, despite the encouragement by the government, the practice of intermodal transport is still in a preliminary stage due to the difficulties of infrastructure investment [ 103 ].

4.1.4. Emerging Technologies Proposed for G&SL Development

Developing advanced facilities and technologies is a sustainable and forward-looking solution to meet the challenge of freight transport. Many emerging logistics systems were proposed in recent years. Such as urban consolidation center [ 104 ], electric road system [ 105 ], intelligent transportation system [ 106 ] and packaging benchmarking system [ 107 ], etc. Meanwhile, some soft applied techniques, such as big data [ 108 ], internet of things [ 109 ] and cloud computing platform [ 110 ], have also been applied to logistics operations to support the sustainable development of the emerging systems.

Electric vehicles (EVs) technology, which has been widely applied in passenger transport, is also waving a revolution in the field of G&SL. Current research on freight EVs mostly focuses on energy efficiency [ 111 ], fleet optimization [ 16 ] and environmental benefits [ 112 ]. Simulation results from various cities show that EVs achieve extremely high benefits in carbon emission reduction, with over 80% relief rate tested by Giordano et al. [ 112 ].

For reducing the negative externalities such as traffic congestion and disturbance, another interesting concept, i.e., transferring the ground logistics process to underground space, namely the Underground Logistics System (ULS), has aroused increasing attention. ULS refers to using a group of hierarchical underground nodes, pipelines, and tunnels to distribute cargo flows in and between cities with 24-h automated operations [ 113 ]. ULS can be designed as a network form connecting urban logistics parks and last-mile delivery, or a dedicated underground container line established between seaports and urban gateways, leading to huge environmental and social benefits (e.g., energy-saving, accidents and congestion mitigation and improving urban logistics capacity, etc.) [ 114 ]. So far, the technological feasibility of several ULS projects was acknowledged, yet the large-scale implementation has not started due to the relatively high construction cost and low public awareness [ 5 ]. For this reason, the collaborative strategy of retrofitting existing urban rail transit systems, such as trams, light rail or subways, to achieve mixed passenger-and-freight transport has received higher recognition and was successfully stepped into engineering practice in some European cities [ 115 ]. Compared with ULS, the collaborative modes are easier to implement, since the dual use of transportation infrastructures would moderate the system cost to an acceptable level [ 49 , 116 ].

4.1.5. Operations Research and Optimization Methods for G&SL Decision-Making

The operations research (OR) of G&SL issues that are originated from real-world applications is always being a well-concerned topic because it is directly related to the quality of some critical decision-making in logistics operation. The OR method applied for G&SL is defined as a better of science to identify the trade-offs between environmental aspects and costs, so that the corresponding decisions such as location, transportation, warehousing, and inventory can be optimized and the limited resources can be reasonably assigned [ 39 ]. Dekker et al. [ 39 ] classified the application of OR in green logistics as follows: logistics services network design [ 48 ], facility location [ 117 ], vehicle routing problem [ 118 ], inventory management [ 40 ] lifecycle production optimization [ 119 ], supply chain planning, control, and procurement [ 120 , 121 ] and model choice [ 122 ]. A variety of OR techniques, such as heuristic algorithms [ 121 ], stochastic programming [ 53 ], and robust optimization [ 123 ], were developed for the above issues. In addition to the objectives of general logistics planning e.g., cost and efficiency, the G&SL version focus more on the minimization of environmental influence, e.g., carbon emission and energy consumption. Currently, OR is increasingly applied to optimize the G&SLs’ decision-making in a complex scenario set, such as demand uncertainty [ 48 ] and facilities failure [ 124 ].

4.2. Research Gaps and Agenda

Through the above scientometric analysis and thematic discussion, the comprehensive research trend, mainstream academic topics, and knowledge taxonomy of G&SL domain were revealed. Although researchers and practitioners achieved substantial results in promoting G&SL theory and practice, there are still some shortcomings that need to be elaborated in future studies.

4.2.1. Limitations of Global Collaboration and General Evaluation Framework

In terms of research model, international cooperation is still lacking. The broad applicability of most G&SL knowledge based on local cases deserves further discussion, such as planning methods and evaluation systems. European countries made great efforts in rebuilding the integration of green logistics. However, the lack of international cooperation and universal solutions hinders the dissemination and deepening of knowledge, and the current achievements are far from enough to promote the globalization of G&SL, which is reflected in the imbalance of global G&SL practice.

To fill this gap, although it is recognized that logistics policy has a strong regional character, cross-institutional and cross-national collaborative research on market operation, industrial metrics, technology innovation and macro development strategies should be strengthened under the trend of supply chain globalization. For example, more attention can be paid to the horizontal comparison of green logistics mode, scheme and performance under different case backgrounds. Additionally, more empirical studies are needed to be carried out in some developing countries in Asia and elsewhere in the world, considering they are the fast growing economies with higher population and logistics demand.

4.2.2. Complement Research from a Global/Holistic Perspective

Although the knowledge branch of research is flourishing, it is acknowledged that there is still a need to supplement the overall or holistic research to improve the knowledge system of G&SL. Research on sustainability and green has always been complex and multi-variable, interactive, with far-reaching implications. Besides, sustainability and green are public and social issues. Current theoretical applications are limited to the analysis of local or one-way relationships, such as LSP/retailer/carrier responses to green policies, planning and performance evaluation of green and sustainable initiatives.

The operation and decision-making of G&SL involve many stakeholders, such as local authorities, manufactures, LSP, carriers, customers, and even the sharers of transportation resources. The impact of G&SL should also be long-term and dynamic. Thus, the whole picture includes multiple perspectives, such as the dynamic evaluation of the whole life-cycle of green logistics practice, the decision interaction among multiple stakeholders, and the follow-up research and report on a new green technology or practice.

4.2.3. Lack of Effective Platform to Accelerate the Research of Innovation Technology

Without green innovation technologies, the effect of implementing G&SL from a management perspective alone is minimal. However, it takes a lot of time for some innovative technologies that can fundamentally improve the negative effects of logistics to move from laboratory to application. Applications such as the EV took decades to implement [ 125 ]. Although the technology is constantly updated and improved, more management lag. Another competent concept, the ULS, ASCE has published a feasible technical system as early as 1998 [ 126 ], but only in a few countries has it been publicly piloted in recent years.

The introduction of a new thing does require a long period of demonstration, such as the reliability of the technology, the acceptability of the market and the ambiguity of the real benefits. However, the problem is often the gap and lag in the research of application management in the transition from technical problems to market application and practice management. Therefore, building effective platforms based on multidisciplinary, cross-organizational collaboration to accelerate the research and application of innovative technologies is particularly important for G&SL practices, such as ULS, RL, and CS. Such calls are all the more urgent in their own research.

5. Conclusions

The concept of green and sustainable logistics has received increasing attention and consideration government sectors, scholars, practitioners, and international organizations. A large amount of practical achievement was made at both the industrial and theoretical levels. This study reviewed 306 valuable contributions regarding G&LS over the past two decades through a three-step review program. They were described in year publication, journal allocation and citation counts. Then, the bibliographic networks of countries, organizations, journal and document co-citations, keyword co-occurrence and timezone clusters of research themes were visualized to help understand the overall research status and academic progress worldwide. Grounded in the scientometric analysis, an integrated knowledge taxonomy of the G&SL field was presented, including five major alignments and 50 sub-branches.

Results indicate that the chronological publication of G&SL shows a trend of rapid increase. The quantity of literature published in 2018 is fifteen times more than that of 10 years ago. Sustainability , Journal of Cleaner Production , Transportation Research Part D: Transport Environment and International Journal of Production Economy are the top four journals, which contributed over a quarter of all G&SL papers since 1999. The maps of journal allocation and co-cited journals show that the current research is most relevant to the environmental science and transportation science. In terms of countries, China, the United States, the UK, Sweden, and India are the major territories of G&SL research. The network across co-authored organizations and countries revealed that the collaboration among different research communities is not strong. Hence an active and robust global collaboration atmosphere has not formed yet.

The map of co-occurred keywords showed that the most frequently discussed G&SL themes in each cluster were sustainability and management (cluster #1), freight transportation and carbon emission (cluster #2), model and reverse logistics (cluster #3), and green supply chain and green logistics (cluster #4). The timezone view of keywords showed that articles related to collaboration, transportation planning, modal shift and stakeholder were largely published during the recent years. On this basis, the knowledge taxonomy of G&SL was manually synthesized from five aspects: (i) evaluation on SEE impacts of G&SL initiatives; (ii) planning, policy, and management research; (iii) real-world application areas and practices; (iv) emerging technologies and (v) operations research and optimization methods for G&SL decision-making.

Finally, the potential roadmap for filling current research gaps was recommended, which were divided into three streams: (i) more global research collaboration should be advocated to jointly develop and supplement the comprehensive evaluation framework of G&SL performance; (ii) future research efforts could focus on the interactive and dynamic relationships among sustainable development goals, green policies and the decision-making of multiple stakeholders; (iii) the application-oriented platforms and management research for some most advanced green logistics initiatives would be highly beneficial in promoting G&SL innovation.

However, it should be noted that the data used in this study was confined to those research articles and review articles that were published in the peer-reviewed journals, and they were retrieved only from the two mainstream databases considering the applicability of software. Although the indexed documents could represent most of the convictive viewpoints of G&SL research, some valuable articles that were published in other forms or included in other databases might be overlooked inevitably. To sum up, this review has great room for improvement in terms of material selection. A systematic investigation incorporating valuable conference proceedings, reports, and books in the field of green logistics or green supply chain is expected to portray a more comprehensive knowledge map for future research. Additionally, the in-depth review of the hotspot themes in G&SL domain e.g., OR application and SCM, may also contribute to multidisciplinary integration and interaction.

Acknowledgments

The editors and anonymous reviewers of this paper are acknowledged for their constructive comments and suggestions.

Author Contributions

R.R. and W.H. proposed the research framework, analyzed the data and wrote the article; B.S. and Y.C. contributed to data collection; J.D. and Z.C. contributed to revising article. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants no. 71631007, no. 71601095 and no. 51478463), and the Postgraduate Research & Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province (Grant no. SJCX19_0230).

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declared that they have no conflicts of interest to this work.

Optimization of Green Logistics Distribution Path-Taking JingDong Distribution as an Example

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Logistics distribution is becoming more and more important, but the traditional distribution process does not consider the impact on the natural and social environment. In order to solve this problem effectively, this paper proposes a method to optimize logistics distribution paths based on the perspective of green environment protection by using ant colony algorithm (ACA). Firstly, by elaborating the importance and necessity of green logistics and distribution, this paper proposes to introduce green factors such as fuel consumption and pollutant emission in logistics and distribution. secondly, this paper constructs a distribution path model, based on which the optimization of green distribution is improved; Finally, combining with the example of Jingdong distribution center, the ant colony algorithm (ACA) is applied to optimize the solution to achieve the purpose of the shortest path with the lowest pollutant emission, moreover, realizing the green logistics distribution, which proves the feasibility and effectiveness of the optimization model.

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This project is supported by Beijing Municipal Social Science Foundation, “Research on the Construction of Risk Profile and Risk Mapping of Internet Finance in Beijing” (No.: 19YJB015).

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Zhang, X., Liang, L., Zhang, M. (2022). Optimization of Green Logistics Distribution Path-Taking JingDong Distribution as an Example. In: Hu, Z., Zhang, Q., Petoukhov, S., He, M. (eds) Advances in Artificial Systems for Logistics Engineering. ICAILE 2022. Lecture Notes on Data Engineering and Communications Technologies, vol 135. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04809-8_46

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Six trends shaping new business models in tourism and hospitality

As destinations and source markets have changed, tourism and hospitality companies have evolved too. Six key trends have shaped business models in this sector over the past decade.

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This article is a collaborative effort by Caroline Tufft , Margaux Constantin , Matteo Pacca , and Ryan Mann , with Ivan Gladstone and Jasperina de Vries, representing views from McKinsey’s Travel, Logistics & Infrastructure practice.

In accommodation, asset-light models like franchising and management have proliferated, though luxury and small-scale brands are opting out. Consolidation has driven economies of scale. Hotels are looking to reclaim their relationship with guests, and almost two decades in, home sharing is charting its own course.

In the experiences space, reinvention is the name of the game. Cruises and theme parks have both focused on attracting new demographics while fine-tuning their revenue management strategies. Experiences remains a highly fragmented, legacy sector, creating massive opportunity for those able to crack the code on aggregation.

By considering the six trends, tourism and hospitality companies can gain insights on business practices for today—and on areas of future opportunity.

Accommodation: New models and value propositions

Large hotel brands have increasingly turned away from hotel ownership, scaling their business through franchising and management instead. The move is paying off. We find there is a 0.84 correlation between a hotel company’s share of franchised properties and its net profit margin.

Not all of hospitality is embracing asset-light model, however. Luxury hotel chains have resisted the trend, largely retaining in-house ownership to control standards. And smaller brands may find that they cannot reach the economies of scale that make the math of a franchise business work—focusing instead on creating distinctive experiences on a smaller scale.

Consolidation set the stage for the past decade. Several hotel brands quickly grew their foothold in key geographies and customer segments through strategic acquisitions, achieving economies of scale along the way.

As major hotels take a breather from a series of substantial acquisitions, further mergers between large hotel brands seem unlikely. However, tuck in acquisitions to target key growth demographics, like the luxury and youth categories, are likely to continue.

Another trend on the horizon is direct booking. Long reliant on online travel agencies, hotels are looking to reclaim their relationships with customers—both to cut down on intermediary booking fees and to learn more about their guests. Hotels are encouraging direct bookings through a variety of levers, ranging from best-rate guarantees to higher reward-earnings rates and improved mobile applications. 1 For example, Hyatt offers a best-rate guarantee for booking on hyatt.com and Marriott International is growing direct bookings. For more, see “Marriott sees record direct bookings at its hotels,” Skift, May 4, 2022.

Home sharing is here to stay. The segment has grown from 10 to 14 percent of booking value between 2017 and 2023, experiencing ups and downs in profitability along the way.

Recently, home sharing has positioned itself as more than a stand-in for traditional hotels. Airbnb’s recent advertising campaign “Get an Airbnb” leaned into the differences of home sharing from other hospitality offerings, emphasizing the space and privacy that renting a house can offer. 1 Samantha Shankman, “‘Get an Airbnb’ campaign challenges hotels,” Skift, August 30, 2023.

Home-sharing companies have also become a key distribution channel for smaller hotels, as they can offer more control over inventory and lower fees than other channels. In 2019, Airbnb reported a 152 percent increase in the number of rooms available for booking through its platform in boutique hotels, bed and breakfasts, and resorts. 2 “More hotels are using Airbnb,” Airbnb news release, January 16, 2019.

Experience providers: New segments and revenue streams

Cruises may only account for 2 percent of the overall travel and tourism market, but they have achieved 6 percent yearly revenue growth in the past decade. 1 McKinsey analysis of publicly listed tourism and hospitality companies’ Form 10-Ks. Attracting new travelers and providing new experiences have been key growth strategies.

Luxury hotels are capturing the new-to-cruising segment with the launch of yacht brands, purposefully positioned as a distinct experience from traditional cruises. Meanwhile, millennials are challenging stereotypes about cruising: of all cruise passengers, they are the demographic most likely to say they plan to cruise again (88 percent). 2 State of the cruise industry 2023: September 2023 update, CLIA, September 2023.

In parallel, cruises have fine-tuned their profitability through economies of scale and new revenue streams. Megaships have become the new normal, as ships with over 3,000 berths have grown from 27 to 47 percent of the global cruise fleet since 2015. Ancillary purchases such as onshore excursions and onboard casinos have also become a major source of growth, now accounting for 30 percent of revenue on average. 3 Calculated using the weighted average based on 2023 Form 10-Ks statements of publicly listed cruise companies.

Theme park attendance has grown 3 percent a year over the past decade, as theme park providers capitalize on new demographics and refine their revenue management strategies. 1 Global attraction attendance report , joint report from AECOM and Themed Entertainment Association, 2019.

Two new groups of visitors in particular are powering growth. First, the Asia–Pacific region accounted for much of the growth in theme park attendance in the past decade: of the total number of new visitors between 2013 and 2018, 57 percent were from Asia. Second, millennials are heading to parks in greater numbers, and not just for their children. A similar proportion of millennial parents (78%) and millennial nonparents (75%) say they are interested in going to a theme park. 2 Morning Consult survey, 2,201 participants, June 14–19, 2018.

To increase value from growing attendance, theme parks have become increasingly sophisticated in the field of revenue management. Demand-based pricing, tiered annual passes, and skip-the-line fees are all poised to go from pioneering to widespread practices.

Experiences are increasingly important to travelers, but the segment remains a highly fragmented space. Operators of activities ranging from walking tours to snorkeling outings tend to be small businesses with a limited digital presence.

This has created an opportunity for tech-forward companies to help travelers discover and book experiences. Destination marketing organizations have long played a role in this. For instance, VisitScotland helps visitors discover interesting activities like attending Harry Potter filming locations and whiskey tastings.

Several private companies that offer online discovery and booking platforms for travel activities, like Viator, GetYourGuide, and Klook, have achieved considerable growth in the US, European, and Asian markets. 1 Yeoh Siew Hoon, “GetYourGuide gets into pole position to win in $250b experiences market,” WIT, September 20, 2023. GetYourGuide grew its revenue fourfold between 2022 and 2023, Viator revenue was up 49 percent for the same time period, and Klook reported twice as many new customers in 2023 as in 2019. 2 “Klook completes US$210 million funding, embarks on a new era of profitable growth,” Klook news release, December 6, 2023; Mitra Sorrells, “With speculation of a sale in the air, Tripadvisor reports record revenue driven—again—by Viator,“ Phocus Wire, February 14, 2024.

Looking forward: Strategies to stay ahead of the curve

Where does this leave tourism and hospitality companies? Companies in any given sector tend to follow a power law curve : a small share of companies account for an outsize portion of both profits and losses. The tourism and hospitality sector is no different.

Over the past decade, publicly listed accommodation and experience providers grew revenue at 3 percent and 4 percent, respectively, roughly in line with global GDP growth. Accommodation providers increased their profits by five percentage points, while experience providers remained at an 18 percent average profit margin.

As stakeholders gear up for the next decade, there are things that businesses across the sector can do to sustain their hard-won growth—and profits. Moving forward, three strategies in particular can help tourism and hospitality companies stay on the leading edge of innovation.

Unbundle offerings

Hotel and experience providers can take a page from the airline playbook by unbundling rates and letting consumers pay for the exact experience they want. For example, at the time of booking, hotels can present guests with an individually priced bundle for a room on a higher floor, including breakfast and free parking—features that the guest’s past behavior suggests they would particularly value. Ensuring that guests can find their ideal room can lead both to increased revenue and increased satisfaction. A major hotel brand reported that guests chose to spend an additional $22 per night, on average, to customize their hotel room to their liking. 1 “IHG Hotels & Resorts revolutionizes booking experience through next-gen cloud solutions,” InterContinental Hotels news release, September 12, 2023.

Cross-sell exclusive experiences

For accommodation and transportation companies, partnering with experience providers to cross-sell a full journey provides an opportunity to tap into a growing area of traveler spending—and a chance to deepen the relationship with customers as a vacation creator. For example, airlines can partner with museums to offer discounted rates if booked at the time of the flight, or hotels can partner with a historical site nearby to offer early-hours admission. For uptake rates to become significant, the partnership needs to add value beyond mere cross-selling. Offering features like insurance or an option to buy now and pay later is one way to add value; creating a distinctive experience like a combined train and historic hotel journey is another.

Embrace a data-powered strategy

Tourism and hospitality entities individually hold a treasure trove of untapped data. Take Paris: hotels may see a surge in bookings for the “shoulder season.” Experience aggregator platforms might see that street food tours have attracted rising interest. Social media might reveal that a particular neighborhood is exploding in popularity. What special guest experiences could be created by combining these insights? Stakeholders can unlock new revenue streams by thinking through what data they hold that can be of value to others. More broadly speaking, combining multiple sources of data can help guide a strategy of unbundling and cross-selling to create more gratifying and pertinent experiences for travelers around the world. Embracing data isn’t just smart—it’s the future of travel.

Caroline Tufft is a senior partner in McKinsey’s London office, Margaux Constantin is a partner in the Dubai office, Matteo Pacca is a senior partner in the Paris office, Ryan Mann is a partner in the Chicago office, Ivan Gladstone is an associate partner in the Riyadh office, and Jasperina de Vries is an associate partner in the Amsterdam office.

The authors wish to thank Abdulhadi Alghamdi, Alessandra Powell, Alex Dichter, Cedric Tsai, Diane Vu, Elisa Wallwitz, Lily Miller, Maggie Coffey, Nadya Snezhkova, Nick Meronyk, Paulina Baum, Peimin Suo, Rebecca Stone, Sarah Fellay, Sarah Sahel, Sophia Wang, Steffen Fuchs, Steffen Köpke, Steve Saxon, and Urs Binggeli for their contributions to this article. The authors also wish to thank Mabrian for providing data.

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Forex reserves sharply fall by $270m WoW

RECORDER REPORT KARACHI: The country’s total liquid foreign exchange reserves sharply fell by $270 million in a week mainly due to massive decline in the reserves held by the commercial banks. According to State Bank of Pakistan’s (SBP) weekly foreign reserves report issued on Thursday, the total liquid foreign reserves held by the country stood at $14.315 billion as of May 24, 2024 compared to $14.585 billion as of May 17, 2024. Most of the decline was witnessed in the reserves held by the commercial banks, while SBP’s reserves posted a slight droop during the week under review. During the week ended on May 24, 2024, SBP reserves decreased by $63 million to $9.094 billion down from $9.157 billion a week earlier due to external debt repayments. Interestingly, despite continued external debt servicing, the SBP is maintaining its reserves above $9 billion supported by a surplus current account. However, the Net foreign reserves held by commercial banks registered a notable decline of $207 million in a week. With this decrease, the net foreign reserves held by commercial banks stood at $5.222 billion at the end of the week as against $5.428 billion at the end of the previous week. Analysts said this sharp fall in the banks’ reserves could be due to the Hajj season and summer holidays, of which people had withdrawn their savings. It may be mentioned here that after completing a short term $3 billion loan programme, the federal government is engaged with the IMF for another long-term loan programme to build its foreign exchange reserves.

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Biostatistics Graduate Program

Julia thome is first author of public health reports paper.

Posted by duthip1 on Wednesday, May 29, 2024 in News .

Congratulations to PhD candidate Julia Thome on the publication of Reporting of Child Maltreatment During the COVID-19 Pandemic in a Southern State in the United States in  Public Health Reports last week, online ahead of print. The paper was co-authored by associate professor Rameela Raman and colleagues at the Vanderbilt Center of Excellence for Children in State Custody, which is within the Vanderbilt Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences. Thome, Raman, and the other members of this team studied how COVID-19 stay-at-home orders may have affected trends in child maltreatment allegations across different socioeconomic groups.

Tags: child abuse , child maltreatment , child neglect , COVID-19 , hotline calls , publications

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