Assessing supply chain collaboration, firm capabilities and performance: An empirical study of third-party logistics industry in Finland

Research objectives: The study aims to develop a theoretical model and validate its corresponding hypotheses to identify and explain the relationship among supply chain collaboration (SCC), firm capabilities and performance based on resourced-based view and its extension version (relational view and extended resource-based view) in the context of Finnish third-party logistics industry. Data and Methodology: Research data were obtained from an online survey, which was developed by the researchers of Logistics Department, Aalto University School of Business. The research procedures follow the typical quantitative empirical research procedure, including data collection, missing data analysis and imputation, statistical description, analysis of variance (ANOVA), exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM). Main findings and conclusions: First, the results of EFA indicated the groups of survey items are expected as our questionnaire design. We also found that the effect of firm size on most of these constructs are insignificant. Second, a five-factor model was confirmed through the assessment of convergent validity, discriminant validity and reliability. Third, a CFA was conducted to examine the discrepancies between the proposed model and the measurement model by various fit statistics. The proposed model was strongly supported by assessing the validity and reliability of the measurement model. Fourth, a SEM approach was applied to assess the fit of a structural model and validate the hypothesized relationships. The good fit indices indicated that the structural model was adequately supported. Furthermore, the empirical results supported the claim that 1) SCC increases the logistics service capability and innovation capability; 2) better logistics service capability leads to better innovation capability; 3) better operational performance could be achieved by developing innovation capability; 4) operational performance is positively linked to financial performance. Discussions: The findings are consistent with previous studies and the theoretical propositions of the research are largely confirmed the survey responses collected from Finland's 3PL providers. The theoretical contribution is the development of a comprehensive conceptual model. In terms of practical application, the results of empirical evidences presented in this study not only advance the understanding of SCC, but also provide an instructive guidance. At last, we discussed the limitations of this study, particularly, the data collection method, and gave the suggestions in the future research to remedy these limitations