Sustainability and Transparency in Freight Transportation

Though being a minor part of the cost of most products, transportation generally accounts for large part of its CO2-emissions. Currently transportation, and in particular road freight transportation, is facing both financial, environmental and social sustainability issues, but has generally been a neglected part of Supply Chain Management practice and research. This module looks both at practice and theory with leading edge development, innovation and current sustainability issues in freight transportation of Supply Chain Management. The module mainly covers four perspectives, but the lectures partly share literature:

• Shipper’s perspective on transparency in transportation. In this lecture we outline the basics of transport purchasing and transport contracts. We look into some sustainability issues related to shippers as well as innovation through horizontal collaboration ((Cruijssen 2012; Sternberg et al. Forthcoming).
• Haulier’s perspective on transparency in transportation. In this lecture we investigate operational issues of truck distribution operations. We learn about the tools from theory and practice to measure and improve haulage operations (Prockl and Sternberg 2015; Sternberg and Harispuru 2017; Sternberg et al. 2013).  
• ICT (Information Communication Technology) perspective on transparency in transportation. Information has over the past decades been viewed as a holy grail to improvement of trucking operations. In this lecture we look at theories that are useful for strategic decision making related to investments in ICT (such as technology diffusion (Rogers 2003)) and critically examine some existing and upcoming technologies and platforms (Collignon and Sternberg 2020; Sternberg et al. 2020b). Furthermore, we will look into the target vision of the European Commission: The concept of Physical Internet (Sternberg and Denizel 2021; Sternberg and Norrman 2017).
• Regulatory perspective on transparency in transportation. In this lecture we will discuss the ongoing European road freight deregulation, opportunities for innovation and challenges in multicultural transport companies. You will also learn about novel state-of-the-art research on how to organize and measure thousands of trucks drivers in social movements, using smartphones and social media (Sternberg et al. 2020a; Sternberg and Lantz 2018).

• Having a holistic understanding of how environmental and social sustainability in transportation is shaped by the involved stakeholders.
• Understanding concurrent transportation challenges in business as well as how they are addressed (or not) in research.
• Ability to use tools and resources to manage logistics service collaboration and assessing novel transport technologies.

Class attendance and participation are integral parts of the functioning and success of this course. You should always arrive in class well prepared to discuss the themes of the lecture. Due to some parts of the lectures being avant-garde research of transport, some materials are not yet published, i.e., the lectures might not be fully covered by the course literature.

The use of mobile phones and electronic devices during class is encouraged.

Case study – “Mismatch between theory and practice”

Objective of the assignment: There are plenty of concepts and innovative technologies in theory that never reach reality and vice versa – plenty of methods and technologies in the real world never get investigated in the literature. This purpose of this assignment is to make you apply what you learn in this module and practice thinking in terms of both theory and practice. Your task is to write a short report on a topic that has only gotten attention in one area.  

Description: In pairs select your area of choice. You should answer the question “What is this concept/technology about, who is interested in it and why is it just present in one domain or the other?” Please make sure to provide a narrative review and a case of an actual application (or a case where a theoretical concept could be applied).

The report is expected to be 2-4 pages, excluding references, tables and images.

This module is examined by a case study report (students should work individually or in pairs) and a written exam. The written exam is only pass or no pass (no grades given), i.e., if a student has passed the written exam, the grade is set after the quality of the case study report.
Grade "passed" is necessary on all assignments, in order to pass the module.

• Written final examination: Pass or no pass (no grades given).            
  The written exam is based on the lectures and the course literature.

• Case study report: Max. 10 pts.:

The case study report is graded mainly based on the following criteria:

• Overall impression of project
• Quality of narrative review
• Quality of case
• Quality of inquiry of why the concept is only present in one side

The grading scale:

(1) Excellent: 90% - 100%

(2) Good: 80% - <90%

(3) Satisfactory: 70% - <80%

(4) Sufficient: 60% - <70%

(5) Fail: <60%

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Course literature

The course literature of the course is initially set to the list (one or two additional papers might be added) below. In addition, sample case study reports will be provided for. Please note that students will get access to the first chapter of the book “Diffusion of Innovations” (the whole book is not the course literature).

• Collignon, S., and Sternberg, H. 2020. "Adoption of multiple electronic marketplaces: Antecedents from a grounded theory study." Journal of Business Logistics 41 (4):310-333.
• Cruijssen, F. 2012. Collaboration Concepts For Comodality (CO3).
• Prockl, G., and Sternberg, H. 2015. "Counting the Minutes : Measuring Truck Driver Time Efficiency." Transportation Journal 54 (2):275-287.
• Rogers, E.M. 2003. Diffusion of innovations. 5th edition ed. New York, NY: Free Press.
• Sternberg, H., and Denizel, M. 2021. "Towards the Physical Internet – Logistics service modularity and design implications." Journal of Business Logistics 42 (1):144-166.
• Sternberg, H., and Harispuru, L. 2017. "Identifying Root Causes of Inefficiencies in Road Haulage: Case Studies from Sweden, Switzerland and Germany." International Journal of Logistics: Research and Applications 20 (1):73-83.
• Sternberg, H., Hofmann, E., and Overstreet, R. 2020a. "Perils of road freight market deregulation: cabotage in the European Union." International Journal of Logistics Management 31 (2):333-355.
• Sternberg, H., Hofmann, E., and Roeck, D. 2020b. "The Struggle is Real: Insights from a Supply Chain Blockchain Case." Journal of Business Logistics 42 (1):71-87.
• Sternberg, H., and Lantz, B. 2018. "Using crowdsourced data to analyze patterns in transport crime." International Journal of Logistics: Research and Applications 21 (2):133-147.
• Sternberg, H., Linan, I., Prockl, G., and Norrman, A. Forthcoming. "Tragedy of the facilitated commons: A multiple case study of failure in systematic horizontal logistics collaboration." Journal of Supply Chain Management.
• Sternberg, H., and Norrman, A. 2017. "The Physical Internet – review, analysis and future research agenda." International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management 47 (8):736-762.
• Sternberg, H., Stefansson, G., Westerberg, E., Boije af Gennäs, R., Allenström, E., and Linger Nauska, M. 2013. "Applying a Lean Approach to Identify Waste in Motor Carrier Operations." International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management 62 (1):47-65.

Cheating and Plagiarism

Cheating in any form and plagiarism will not be tolerated and result in severe penalties. Plagiarism is the use of words and ideas of others without attribution or without quotation marks or accompanying footnotes. In the extreme, plagiarism may result in failure of the course.