Resumo

HERNANDEZ-APAM, Miguel Angel; DURAN-ENCALADA, Jorge Alberto; VEGA-LEBRUN, Carlos Arturo  e  OLIVARES-BENITEZ, Elías. The role of the Fourth Party Logistics in the logistic activities of enterprises located in the Central and Gulf region of Mexico. Nova scientia [online]. 2014, vol.6, n.11, pp.198-227. ISSN 2007-0705.

The complexity of managing supply chains has meant that many organizations do not have all the resources and capabilities to achieve the necessary changes. Therefore, this study sets up some questions related to the presence of logistics services providers to attend Mexican companies. To answer these questions, we undertook a survey in a sample of 166 companies that mobilize freight in the Central and Gulf region of Mexico. We applied a variance analysis (ANOVA) to test five hypotheses related to the specialized services for freight transported and logistics services required, the level of satisfaction, and the degree of integration of the providers during the supply of these services. To support these hypotheses, we used concepts derived from the Theory of Transaction Costs and the Resource Based View. As a result, we could observe that when companies require a number of specialized services to transport cargo, logistics services providers do not have the sufficient quality or resources to meet that demand. Regarding the participation of logistics services providers in an integrated manner or not in specialized handling of the transported freight and the number of logistics services, it can be inferred that, on the one hand, the ability of these providers in Mexico is perceived as poor or lacking competitiveness. On the other hand, most likely companies still lack the knowledge or confidence enough to make these 4PL's accountable for supplying a larger number of logistics services, including those specialized for handling the transported freight. It is also likely that, given the operating characteristics of 4PL's, these find limitations in their attempt to link together different specialized service providers in other to fulfill companies' requirements. This means that integrators may have difficulties for finding these partners in Mexico that are able to accompany them in the provision of a wider service to meet the increasingly demanding requirements of enterprises.

Palavras-chave : Logistics; logistics service providers; fourth-party logistics service providers; transaction costs theory; outsourcing.

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