Explaining the competitive advantage of logistics service providers: A resource-based view approach

This article identifies strategic logistics resources acquired and bundled by logistics service providers (LSPs) to achieve competitive advantage. Based on a theoretical framework derived from the resource-based view (RBV) theory, contents of a database of company profiles of 15 selected LSPs are analysed. Results show that all LSPs have been acquiring physical, human, information, knowledge and relational resources and then bundling them together in various specific manners to create inimitable and firm-specific capabilities. However, only some of them performed well financially. The findings contribute to the conceptualisation and measurement of strategic logistics resources and the identification of resource bundling processes. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.