STRATEGIES AND PERFORMANCE IN THE TRUCKLOAD GENERAL FREIGHT SEGMENT BEFORE AND AFTER DEREGULATION

According to strategic management literature, organizations must maintain a proper alignment with their environments, so that as environment changes so too should the organizations' strategies. The 1977-1987 time period brought about dramatic environmental change for the entire motor carrier industry. New entry, market expansions, and new pricing freedoms resulted in a much more intensely competitive environment characterized by significant rate discounting. The truckload (TL) general freight segment provides a good setting for studying the dynamics of strategy in the face of fundamental environmental change. Accordingly this paper employs cluster analysis to group TL general freight firms according to their strategy in both 1977 and 1987; performance differences across strategies are then studied. This paper also examines changes of strategy over time by individual firms and the performance changes associated with alternative pathways. Study results from the 1977 and 1987 data indicated that firms in three strategic groups pursuing a clearly defined strategy were the highest performing groups in terms of operating ratio. The lowest performing groups did not have a clearly defined strategy. Regulation appears to have impeded the formation of clearly defined strategies, as almost 46 percent of the firms were not following a specific strategy in 1977. A surprising result is that only a small number of additional firms follow clearly defined strategies in the deregulated period, counter to strategic management theory. An explanation might be that the impacts of regulation which may deter the formation of specific strategies appear to persist somewhat in the early deregulated years.

• Record URL:
  https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001070572/Home
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: https://www.library.northwestern.edu/find-borrow-request/requests-interlibrary-loan/lending-institutions.html
• Authors:
  • Corsi, T M
  • Grimm, C M
• Publication Date: 1989

Media Info

• Features: References; Tables;
• Pagination: p. 92-97
• Serial:
  • Journal of the Transportation Research Forum
  • Volume: 30
  • Issue Number: 1
  • Publisher: Transportation Research Forum
  • ISSN: 1046-1469
  • Serial URL: https://trforum.org/journal-of-the-trf/
• Publication flags:

  Open Access (libre)

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Before and after studies; Cluster analysis; Deregulation; Freight transportation; Management; Motor carriers; Performance
• Old TRIS Terms: Strategy
• Subject Areas: Administration and Management; Economics; Freight Transportation; Highways; Motor Carriers; Society; I10: Economics and Administration;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00490016
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Dec 31 1989 12:00AM