Influence of Organizational Culture on Service Provider Selection

Abstract

Although Third Party Logistics Service Provider (3PL) selection literature mentions organizational culture's role in the development as well as in the maintenance of 3PL arrangements, there is a paucity of attempts to underline the significance of organizational culture's influence on the formation and management of 3PL relationships. In this study, the influence of different organizational cultural orientations in uncertainty avoidance, future orientation, performance orientation and paternalism dimensions on the value and the priority that the outsourcing firms give to relation-oriented and success-oriented 3PL selection criteria is investigated. High and low cultural orientation (for each dimension) groups are compared in terms of the value that they give to relation-oriented and success-oriented criteria via t-tests whereas they are compared in terms of the priority that they give to relation-oriented and success-oriented criteria via Wilcoxon rank sum tests. The study reveals that decision makers are influenced by their organizational cultures while valuing and prioritizing relation-oriented versus success-oriented 3PL selection criteria.