Impact Of Multi-level Logistics Resources On Manufacturing-logistics Linkage Efficiency

Since the announcement of "Plan of logistics industry restructuring and revitalization in China" in March 2009,the manufacturing and logistics industry linkage has become one of the ninth key projects in the process of revitalizing the logistics industry.Moreover,in the middle-and long-term plan for the logistics industry development in 2014,more emphasis has been placed on the industrial logistics.It's all because of the close relationship between the two industries.Thus,the linkage development has become hot topic for research and investigation from scholars in recent years.The linkage between manufacturing and logistics industries suggests both inter-and intra-relationships,based on industrial relationships.The scope of the research is wide with important practical implications.Logistics resources,as the antecedents to the linkage development,are important to the linkage efficiency.Therefore,research on the impact of logistics resources on the linkage development has both theoretical and practical implications.This study contributes to the literature in three ways.First,different from previous research that categorizes logistics researouces in simple ways,this study differentiates logistics resources into three levels(i.e.,micro level(within firms),meso level(between firms),and macro level(outside firms)),drawing insights from industrial linakge theory.Thus,in this study logistics resources are composed of three-level resources.Second,this study conducts research from firm level and thus sees three levels of phenomena;that is,the firm level is the micro level,the linkage level is the meso level while the environment level is the macro level.From a multi-level perspective,this study investigates the impact of different levels of logistics resources on the linakge efficiency,which enriches research on the manufacturing and logistics linkage development.Last,under the guidance of industrial linkage theory,this study integrates different management theories when analyzing at different levels,and thus.Treating industrial linkage theory as the core theory,1)at the micro level,this study integrates the resource base view;2)at the meso level,this study integrates strategic alliance and logistics outsourcing theories;3)at the macro level,this study integrates resource dependence theory.Thus,this study extends research on the manufacturing and logistics linkage by drawing insights from multi-disciplinary theories.To investigate propositions,this study chooses the output logistics of the auto industry as the research context.Beijing Hyundai and Changjiu logistics are selected as a pair of research samples.Through rigorous research design,this study adopts interviews based on the designed interview questions to examine the seven propositions.Further,this study designed questionnaire distributed in the two case firms to investigate the relationships between constructs.Findings of the two methods consistently suggest that all propositions obtain support,which verifies rationality of this study.Finally,this study proposes policy implications,presents its contributions to the literature as well as its limitations and future research.