Perceived Quality of an Intermediary and Its Relations with Image and Perceived Value

Whilst globalisation has offered a fertile ground for businesses to offer several services from all sides of the compass, it appears that this landscape has attracted new avenues for service provisions and transactions. All these aspects have resulted in dramatic shift in consumers' purchase decision making process. This research presents some insights of customers' perception of quality offered by intermediaries working in networked environments. The principal hypotheses are that, after experiencing services delivered by an intermediary, customers synthesise their perceptions, in terms of the quality perceived. Furthermore, this assessment will determine its image and the perceived value. A quantitative survey was conducted in an airline alliance context, to verify if the hypotheses are acceptable. A structural equation modelling tested using the PLS-SEM method demonstrates the influence of alliance wide perceived quality on airline alliances' image and perceived value.

4PL Intermediation

The 2000s have seen the increased development of a different type of logistics service providers known as fourth party logistics (4PL) service providers. Those providers are now very involved in the short-term “transient” logistics needed by large retailers to organize the supply chain for some of their promotional activities that only last few days, or NGO to organize efficient relief operations after a disaster. Hence, 4PL firms can be considered dynamic assemblers of logistical resources they capture from partners in order to satisfy clients. A major criterion required for a successful 4PL intermediation is trust, as key element of social capital, and this chapter discusses the importance of trust in the efficient operations of this transient or ad hoc relationship between the 4PL and the client.

Roles of Intermediaries in Developing Resilient Systems

This theoretical chapter discusses the role that intermediaries may play in direct distribution, supply chains and supply networks. The first approach does not recognize benefits from striving for collaboration and avoids intermediaries' participation as much as possible. Conversely, the latter two emphasize the creation of economic and efficiency values, through the alignment of goals and resources directed by a stronger channel lead body. However, in the case of micro-producers, increasing these values is not the only motivation; lifestyle or esteem factors may be, for example, more potent drivers. The research extends multi-actor supply arrangements beyond chains and networks, by introducing the concept of supply communities. This is illustrated through a vignette of a regional food marketing umbrella group that plays an organizing role. Findings suggest intermediaries to act as triggers for collaboration. The complementary nature of the community approach suggests a framework for micro-businesses to strengthen their operations with existing traditional supply arrangements.

Intermediary and Intermediation

The concept of intermediation has existed for a long time and taken numerous different forms. In this introductory chapter, we will therefore start by examining the state of the art of intermediaries through a range of different disciplines (history, management, economics, health, sociology), highlighting their historical evolution and current forms. We will then present the different models and theories of intermediation and their development, to produce an appreciation of their similarities and differences and a comprehensive view of the subject. This will allow us, in the last section, to propose the framework for a general theory of intermediation, in terms of organisational architecture and the services provided.

Textile and Clothing Exporting Firms' Evaluation of LSPs' Capabilities and Logistics Outsourcing Performance

Using resource-based view (RBV) as the main theoretical framework, this chapter examines the impact of logistics service providers' capabilities on logistics outsourcing performance from the perspective of textile and clothing exporting companies in Egypt. The study focuses on three resource capabilities acquired by logistics service providers (flexibility, expertise, and innovativeness) in a specific LSP-Client outsourcing relationship. The study identified flexibility and expertise as strong drivers of logistics outsourcing performance. No support was found for LSPs innovativeness as a driver of outsourcing performance. This may be because of the standardized logistics services provided by LSPs to exporters in the textile and clothing industry, which requires less service innovation within the empirical setting. Implications of the study for management are highlighted along with suggestions for further studies.

The Need for News Forms of Financial Intermediation

This chapter deals with intermediaries in the financial sector such as banks and institutional investors. These actors are expected to play a central role in economic growth via the funding of investment because they are supposed to match creditors' desires (households) with borrowers' needs (firms) at a macroeconomic level. It aims to reassess the theoretical role of financial intermediation related to the allocation of savings in a context of a structural decline in overall investment for thirty years. To achieve this goal, it studies the evolution of financial intermediaries' behaviour in their capacity to finance investment and identifies the weaknesses of our current financial system which does not allocate optimally savings to firms' productive projects. Then it suggests some policy implications defining new forms of financial intermediation in which public financial intermediaries would have to play a greater role.

Global Supply Chain Management Organization at Siemens in the Advent of Industry 4.0

Contemporary supply chain management involves integration, collaboration, networking, the Internet as a channel. The latter is about to be disrupted by the Internet of Things and industry 4.0. Contemporary Supply Chain Management involves supplier integration over product lifecycle. This creates structural organizational opportunities for Global Supply Chain Centers, organized as a corporate functional unit for an organization, a shared service center or a Business Process Organization that manages supply chain intermediation. The opportunities of such units are unravelled, the major of which: closing bulk contracts at a large discount price, especially for commodities; closing contracts with suppliers to assure supply availability and quality; economies of scale; complex product over lifetime advantages. These are possible for a large corporation or a Business Process Organization. This chapter aims to explore, analyze and evaluate the construction of a Global Supply Chain Management at Siemens since 2009 to date in the advent of Industry 4.0 promoted by Siemens.

An Overview of Feeder Services in the Era of Mega Containerships

In the era of mega containerships, global containership liners design their transportation service as Hub-and-Spoke networks to improve the access to local transportation markets and to reduce operational costs by using short-sea connections for low-volume transportation lines. Feeder services play an irreplaceable role as logistics service provider in global shipping because of considerable benefits resulting from an increased port range, elimination of port restrictions, small sized ships with increased service frequency, the use of mega containerships, savings in network cost, and decreased inland traffic and air-pollution. In addition to main advantages of feeder service, efficient distribution of containers to faraway regions through feeder services out of the main line regions could subsist in a worldwide market. The aim of this chapter is to analyze the role of feeder services in liner shipping and provide information about major challenges that feeder service providers face in planning their logistics networks in the era of mega containerships.

The Roles of Logistics Service Providers and Supply Chain Integration in Global Supply Chain

This chapter explains the overview of logistics service providers (LSPs); LSPs' competitive advantage and logistics performance; LSPs, city logistics, and freight distribution in megacities; LSPs and cloud computing utilization; LSPs, green supply chain, and environmental sustainability; the prospect of supply chain integration (SCI); and the important aspects of SCI in global supply chain. LSPs can share responsibility for managing global supply chain, keeping stores properly stocked, and delivering the perfect order every time. Carriers and logistics intermediary perform more roles than what people think they do, because network connection and the ambition to remain competitive make them to take up value-added services. SCI is a network of businesses and contractors that provide raw materials, transportation, manufacturing, distribution, warehousing, and retailing services. Through SCI, operating flexibility and tight inventory management lead to a lower cost structure, which results in higher profit margins.

Intermediation and Innovation Contests on the Internet

The aim of this chapter is to analyse the emergence of a new form of hybrid research, resulting from the meeting of the Internet and an old practice revitalized by the Web: innovation contests. Through the study of two specific systems, the private platform Innocentive.com and the government-related platform Challenge.gov, we propose to highlight the particularities of these two recent models of research and innovation organisation. We also seek to identify the main similarities and differences in the forms of intermediation practised by these two platforms and particularly as regards the range of service provision: provide information, guidance and expertise, create and conduct business transactions, solve complex challenges, manage Intellectual Property issues. This comparative analysis illustrates the great malleability of the system of online contests, which can thus adapt to very diverse needs on the part of sponsors and take into account the specificity of the required innovations.