Cross-Cultural Differences in Logistics and Adaptation To Them: The Case Of A German Logistics Services Provider Entering The Russian Market

This paper explores obstacles to doing business related to the logistics industry in the emerging Russian market, ways of dealing with these obstacles and the role of culture in problem definitions and solutions. The paper is based on the case of a German logistics services provider entering and operating in the Russian market. Data were obtained from interviews of top managers of its Russian subsidiary and analyzed using qualitative research methods. Findings show that the firm treats difficult logistics problems in Russia as business opportunities and applies its traditional strengths reflecting its national and organizational culture to overcome the obstacles and problems. However, the firm must rethink its business strategy and step out of its traditional cultural comfort zone to deal with specific obstacles explained by “high power distance” and other dimensions of the Russian national culture

Managing Warehouse Utilization: An Analysis of Key Warehouse Resources

The warehousing industry is extremely important to businesses and the economy as a whole, and while there is a great deal of literature exploring individual operations within warehouses, such as warehouse layout and design, order picking, etc., there is very little literature exploring warehouse operations from a systems approach. This study uses the Theory of Constraints (TOC) to develop a focused resource management approach to increasing warehouse capacity and throughput, and thus overall warehouse performance, in an environment of limited warehouse resources. While TOC was originally developed for reducing operational bottlenecks in manufacturing, it has allowed companies in other industries, such as banking, health care, and the military, to save millions of dollars. However, the use of TOC has been limited to case studies and individual situations, which typically are not generalizable. Since the basic steps of TOC are iterative in nature and were not designed for survey research, modifications to the original theory are necessary in order to provide insight into industry-wide problems. This study further develops TOC\u27s logistics paradigm and modifies it for use with survey data, which was collected from a sample of warehouse managers. Additionally, it provides a process for identifying potentially constrained key warehouse resources, which served as a foundation of this study. The findings of the study confirm that TOC\u27s methods of focused resource capacity management and goods flow scheduling coordination with supply chain partners can be an important approach for warehouse managers to use in overcoming resource capacity constraints to increase warehouse performance