The entrenchment strategy of logistics service providers: Towards a sequential cooperation-competition process?

Abstract

The logistics industry has been attracting the attention of researchers in management for several years. Their focus is increasingly on interorganisational relationships between logistics service providers and their customers, examining the modes of interaction occurring between them. An abundant literature emphasises the importance of cooperative strategies in the logistics industry, hinting that this is a dominant requirement, destined for inevitable development. This article presents a more qualified position and proposes that cooperative strategies are most likely a transition step between arm’s-length competition periods, and resorts to the entrenchment theory, imported from organisational finance, to propose a sequential cooperation-competition model.