Stakeholder Pressures, Environmental Practice Adoption and Economic Performance in the German Third-party Logistics Industry—A Contingency Perspective

Steffen Maas (), Tassilo Schuster () and Evi Hartmann ()
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Steffen Maas: Adidas AG Amsterdam, Director Global Distribution Center Landscape
Tassilo Schuster: Friedrich-Alexander-University of Erlangen-Nürnberg
Evi Hartmann: Friedrich-Alexander-University of Erlangen-Nürnberg

Journal of Business Economics, 2018, vol. 88, issue 2, No 2, 167-201

Abstract: Abstract This study explores how companies adopt environmental practices when they are exposed to stakeholder pressures and how those practices affect economic performance within the German third-party logistics industry. The relationships are tested against a random sample of 192 German third-party logistics providers by using a higher-order partial least squares approach. The study reveals that perceived stakeholder pressures, especially internal, market, and regulatory pressures, strongly influence third-party logistics providers’ environmental practice adoption and that environmental practice adoption improves economic performance. Moreover, by introducing complexity of service offerings as an important firm-related contextual variable, the study advances our knowledge as it highlights that companies with basic service offerings can benefit more from adopting environmental practices than companies with advanced service offerings.

Keywords: Environmental sustainability; Third-party logistics; Partial least squares; Contingency perspective (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F64 M10 M14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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DOI: 10.1007/s11573-017-0872-6

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