Logistics Services Sector and Economic Recession in Greece: Challenges and Opportunities

Dimitrios Folinas, Naoum Tsolakis and Dimitrios Aidonis
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Dimitrios Folinas: Department of Supply Chain Management and Logistics, Technological Educational Institute of Central Macedonia, 60 100 Katerini, Greece
Naoum Tsolakis: Department of Engineering, School of Technology, Centre for International Manufacturing, Institute for Manufacturing (IfM), University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0FS, UK
Dimitrios Aidonis: Department of Supply Chain Management and Logistics, Technological Educational Institute of Central Macedonia, 60 100 Katerini, Greece

Logistics, 2018, vol. 2, issue 3, 1-16

Abstract: The recent economic recession in Greece has had a detrimental impact on all national business activities, with the logistics industry being one of the most affected sectors primarily due to the significant decrease in market demand for goods and services. In this regard, the aim of this research is to identify key challenges and prospects for the Greek logistics services industry stemming from the recent economic crisis era through a critical literature taxonomy, a semantic analysis of the reviewed articles, and a questionnaire-based survey involving 140 executives from the third-party logistics sector. In principal, the recent economic crisis is reported to have significantly affected logistics service providers, thus further imposing structural reforms in the industry. The reduction in operating profits of transport companies is noticeable with the onset of the economic crisis, specifically in 2016. Nevertheless, logistics executives are optimistic regarding the near future, provided that educated and informed strategic management decisions are made and inventive business practices are embraced.

Keywords: economic recession; logistics services sector; Greece; third-party logistics (3PL); logistics functional areas; critical taxonomy; semantic analysis; text mining; word co-occurrences; questionnaire-based survey (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L8 L80 L81 L86 L87 L9 L90 L91 L92 L93 L98 L99 M1 M10 M11 M16 M19 R4 R40 R41 R49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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