How to establish and maintain outsourcing relationships between logistics service providers and their clients?

Purpose: Analysis of supply chain collaboration between logistics service providers (LSPs) and their clients with a main focus set on communication and coordination issues and how technology (i.e. rational measures to achieve defined goals), present interdependencies and complexity as well as organizational coordination mechanisms influence the way of collaboration between LSPs and their clients under uncertainty. Research Approach: A conceptual framework of supply chain integration and collaboration based on the technology concept of James D. Thompson is employed, showing how interdependence and complexity resulting in uncertainty can be managed by coordination mechanisms. Qualitative interviews with experts from leading LSPs how they establish and maintain outsourcing relationships operationally were conducted at Austria and analysed by open, axial and selective coding following a grounded theory approach methodology. Findings and Originality: Coordination as a precondition for collaboration is based on efficient and effective communication between LSPs and their clients. The more complex and/or interdependent processes in an outsourcing relationships are, the more intense coordination efforts have to be established and maintained to reduce uncertainty. Furthermore, collaboration level between LSPs and clients is influenced by several factors such as strategic importance of the client, contract volume and transaction frequency, a common understanding of the mutual dependency arising from collaboration, trust, depth of personal relationships and degree of standardization communication on operational level. Moreover, it indicates that operational coordination efforts seem to be limited to standardization of input, output and work processes - otherwise coordination costs would rise enormously.