Purpose – In an era of downsizing and financial cutbacks, the operational efficiency of third party logistics providers (3PLs) dictates their competitiveness and/or survival. In an effort to help 3PLs enhance productivity and price leverage in the increasingly competitive third party logistics...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to profile the successful implementation of a corporate‐wide supplier diversity program utilized by Caterpillar, Inc., one of the Fortune 500 companies. Caterpillar's supplier diversity program can be a blue‐print for other companies which would like...

Purpose – This paper aims to examine whether some countries achieve logistics efficiency at the cost of undermining environmental quality. In so doing, a hybrid index, the green logistics performance index (GLPI) combining both the LPI and the environmental performance index (EPI), is...

Total customer satisfaction is one of the most important strategic weapons of best‐practice hotel organizations. However, hotel organizations cannot achieve total customer satisfaction without gaining the knowledge of a hotel’s competitive position in the changing marketplace and realizing...

Purpose – As the household budget tightens in uncertain economic times, many grocery shoppers are constantly looking for the best deal in town. To attract and retain these savvy shoppers, a supermarket should understand what they value most and how they comparison‐shop. With this in mind,...

As quality and profitability have become inseparable concepts, a growing number of service firms have considered quality their top priority in maintaining competitiveness. Commitment to service quality, however, is nothing more than lip service, unless management develops reliable service...