Contemporary Logistics Education An International Perspective

International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management
Contemporary logistics education: an international perspective

Yen-Chun Jim Wu
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IJPDLM
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Contemporary logistics
education: an international
perspective
504
Received March 2007
Accepted May 2007
Yen-Chun Jim Wu
National Kaohsiung First University of Science and Technology,
Yanchao, Taiwan
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of the study is to provide readers with an overall picture of contemporary
logistics curricula from an international perspective.
Design/methodology/approach Comparative analyses of logistics education are performed
among Europe, North America, and Asia, between developing nations and developed nations, and
between continental nations and island nations.
Findings The findings of the study are of value in identifying additional educational needs of
logistics professionals as well as in hiring new professionals.
Originality/value Little research has been done to understand contemporary logistics education in
a comprehensive way. This paper is the first empirical study to use data available on the web sites of
academic logistics programs to provide descriptive analyses of logistics courses offered at universities
around the world.
Keywords Education, Distribution management, Curricula
Paper type Research paper
International Journal of Physical

Distribution & Logistics Management
Vol. 37 No. 7, 2007
pp. 504-528
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0960-0035
DOI 10.1108/09600030710776455
Introduction
Previous work has found that in the past many business schools often did not recognize
logistics management as a separate and distinct field, and that there a disagreement as to
how logistics should fit into an undergraduate business curriculum (Langley and
Mundy, 1978). It was not until 1970 that the study of logistics began to gain popularity
due to the increasing demand for logistics professionals in industry and government
(Lancioni et al., 2001b). Logistics is now considered one of the key competitive factors by
International Institute for Management Development in its annual world
competitiveness ranking (IMD, 2006). Furthermore, the famous annual ranking report
on academic programs released by US News & World Report (www.usnews.com) began
in 2003 to include supply chain management/logistics in its business specialty list. The
SCM/logistics program is the only new educational program that was added to its
annual ranking list of business specialties in recent years. At present, logistics/supply
chain management is viewed as a popular academic area around the world.
Many argue that, if strictly defined, there is a clear distinction between supply chain
management and logistics, as each deals with a different level of issues. Lambert and
Cooper (2000) indicate that:
. . . logistics is that part of the supply chain process that plans, implements, and controls the
efficient, effective flow and storage of goods, services, and related information from the
point-of-origin to the point-of-consumption in order to meet customers requirements.
However, it is obvious that the term supply chain management is used in a broader
sense than logistics management. However, from the perspectives of management and
the fundamental definitions on logistics/supply chain management, Stock and Lambert
(2001) maintain that logistics management in a general sense is very similar to supply
chain management, and it is difficult and unnecessary to distinguish between two
terms as there is a great deal of overlapping. Similarly, Langley (1986) states:
. . . while many authors go the great length to provide concise definitions of each of these
terms, the fact is that in actual business practices these terms many times are used
interchangeably. Each professional in this field has at least a slightly different interpretation
of what each of these terms means. For this reason, terminology will not be an issue if it is
assumed that there is some common understanding that any or all of these terms refers
generally to a comprehensive set of activities relating to the movement and storage of product
and information. These activities are all undertaken to achieve two common goals, namely,
providing an acceptable level of customer service, and operating a logistics systems to
provide overall conformity to customer requirements.
The major purpose of this study is to provide an overall curriculum analysis for
academic departments with a strong focus on logistics. It is believed that it is
inappropriate and almost infeasible to purposely distinguish among programs which
are logistics-oriented and which are supply chain management-oriented. For this
reason, both logistics and supply chain management are viewed as the same area in
our study. Hence, the term logistics used throughout our paper also includes supply
chain management-related courses.
To meet demand, academic institutions have rushed to develop formal degrees in
logistics at the graduate and undergraduate levels. However, Lancioni et al. (2001a)
argue that most logistics programs fail to develop to more accurately reflect the
international setting and the multi-disciplinary nature of supply chain management.
From an industry perspective, there is a long standing disagreement as to how logistics
should fit into an undergraduate business curriculum and to what extent students
should be trained in logistics versus the on-the-job training they will be exposed to
(Langley and Mundy, 1978).
The findings of the 2003 Survey of Career Patterns in Logistics (La Londe and
Ginter, 2003) suggest that there is a new generation of logistics graduates who are
making their way up to the logistics executive levels of their firms. As indicated by van
Hoek (2001), rapid changes in practice and further developments in research into
logistics are challenging educators to further upgrade their courses. To meet the
changing demands of industry, substantial change in logistics and supply chain
education is necessary (Gammelgaard and Larson, 2001). A majority of research on
logistics education is limited to a geographical area (Christopher et al., 1998;
Gammelgaard, 2001; Grant, 2001; Rutner and Fawcett, 2005) and is largely case
study-based or survey-based (Rao et al., 1998; Alvarstein and Johannesen, 2001; Ferrin
et al., 2001; Gudmundsson and Nijhuis, 2001; Rutner and Fawcett, 2005). The research
into the current status of logistics programs at the college level has been found to still
be limited (Lancioni et al., 2001b).
A carefully designed logistics program catering to the needs of a clearly identified
market segment can provide a considerable stimulus and impetus to action (Cowell,
1998). Many marketing executives can be encouraged to apply what they learn if they
are given sufficient support when they return to their firms. However, it is very often
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found that the new found enthusiasm an executive returning from a course may have
may be compromised by the pressures and time constraints of the immediate tasks.
According to the findings on the courses reviewed by Cowell and as other studies at
Bradford indicate, this means that the company using an external course should take a
great deal of care in its selection of both the participant and the course. Courses should
be designed and used to meet needs, and any professional course organizer will be
willing to talk in detail about his program. For like any marketing operation, in the
long-term, the success or failure of the marketing educators operation depends
ultimately on the success or failure of his programs.
Literature review
Over the past decade logistics programs in universities have grown dramatically to
accommodate more students at both the graduate and undergraduate levels (Lancioni
et al., 2001a). A close look at 317 doctoral dissertations in logistics-related areas
published during 1992-1998 shows that none of them deals with logistics education at
any degree levels (Stock, 2001). This is alarming, since these future logistics educators
seem to view such issues as unimportant research topics or have no interest in logistics
education. Hence, it is of no surprise that very little has been documented about
doctoral education in the logistics field (Gammelgaard, 2001). Nevertheless, some
logistics scholars are aware of the importance of logistics education/curriculum as a
research topic and its implications for all stakeholders (Grant, 2001). Two special
issues of the International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management in
1998 and 2001 were devoted to addressing the importance of logistics education.
The research by Russell (1998) suggests that the structure of logistics programs from
course content to the level of the degree offered is determined by the types of
opportunities offered in the marketplace. A similar argument by Keolanui and Wood
(1998) is that transportation course offerings at both the undergraduate and graduate
levels are rather insignificant at most US universities because there is apparently no
demand by the transportation industry for students whose major field is transportation.
According to Lancioni et al. (2001b), some barriers encountered in the development
and planning of logistics course and programs include, but are not limited to, a lack of
trained faculty to teach logistics; difficulty in integrating a logistics major in the current
curriculum; general lack of student interest in logistics/SCM as a major; resistance of
faculty in other departments as to the merit of logistics as a respectable area in business,
resistance to the development of a logistics program by certain departments within the
school such as marketing, operations management, finance, accounting, management,
economics, and statistics; and general lack of fit of logistics/SCM into the overall
curriculum core of the undergraduate and graduate programs.
Some research indicates that different views on logistics skills and education are likely
to exist in different regions. The logistics managers operating in the European Union,
rather than in the USA will necessarily be more broadly skilled individuals who will be
confronted by a variety of customer requirements overlaid with a diversity of cultural and
linguistic differences (Walton et al., 1998). Such varied requirements may require a tailored
logistics program that fits the local demand. In North America, an inter-country
comparison of US and Canada by Ruppenthal (1998) shows that Canadian transportation
education contrasts markedly with that in the USA, and until recently the US Department
of Transportation has done little to encourage transportation education in the USA.
Poist et al. (2001) finds highly dissimilar views regarding changes from 1992 to 1998
in skill requirements between US and European respondents. In essence, US
respondents appear more likely to seek managers with broader-based skills and those
capable of being both a management generalist and a management specialist. Similarly,
Wu (2006) examines the key logistics-related skills required at the basic, managerial, and
business levels in Taiwan from the licensing certification perspective. Wus study finds
that the mid-level logisticians are highly expected to be equipped with more key logistics
skills than those at the basic and business levels. The research findings also show that
the logisticians at the managerial level play a very critical role in the logistics industry.
This suggests that the mid-level logisticians should have more formal
coursework/training in all logistics areas. In addition, we can see an increase in the
importance place on leadership and interpersonal skills in the USA (Poist et al., 2001).
A cross-cultural survey of Singapore and Malaysia by Razzaque and Sirat (2001) on
the skill requirements of senior-level logisticians reveals that Singapore logisticians
view all the three categories of skills, involving business/logistics/management
knowledge and skills, are equally important, whereas to their Malaysian counterparts
the importance of managerial skills/knowledge outweighs those of the other two
categories. In addition, logisticians in the two nations hold significantly different views
on some skill requirements, suggesting the factor of geographic area should be taken
into account in curriculum analysis.
A survey conducted by Gilmour (1988) back in the 1980s found logistics managers
in the Asia Pacific region were more narrow-minded and less well educated than their
US counterparts. This tends to suggest that there have been major changes during the
last decade, as logisticians in the Asia Pacific region seem to be fast catching up with
their North American counterparts. It might be interesting to see if this picture remains
unchanged in terms of logistics curriculum given both the differences in geographic
characteristics and levels of economic development.
All of the studies discussed so far above have been conducted only to deal with a
narrower issue or a smaller region. No studies have been undertaken to provide
an overall picture of the current logistics curricula from an international perspective.
This has resulted in a prominent gap in the literature given the growing trend of
globalization and the importance of logistics education in shaping a competent
logistician.
Research method
Data collection
In order to develop a comprehensive list of logistics/SCM curricula, the research is
divided into two phases to:
(1) identify the logistics/SCM programs/institutions that offer logistics/SCM
programs at different degree levels among different geographic regions; and
(2) collect and analyze the logistics/SCM courses offered by universities identified
in Step 1.
The curriculum analysis of this study is based on logistics-related courses including
mandatory and elective courses. To focus on the core logistics courses, courses which
have little to do with logistics are excluded from our later analysis (e.g. general
education, physical education, fine arts, history, literature writing, and counseling).
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As inherent in every web-based study, our statistical results are influenced by data
availability, updating frequency, and languages used on the web site. For instance, though
some academic departments/institutions in non-English speaking countries also provide
information about their logistics program in English they fail to give details on the
curriculum. As a result, our analysis is mainly based on curriculum data from department
web sites written in English. During the data search period, unsurprisingly, detailed
logistics curriculum information was usually found on web sites in English-speaking
nations. However, detailed logistics curriculum data can still be obtained from
non-English-speaking logistics departments which accept foreign student admission and
are eager to gain connections with the outside world. Nevertheless, despite this inherent
limitation of data availability, since no strong systematic statistics bias is believed to exist,
the merits of this study remain by performing an overall analysis from a large number of
factual logistics curriculum to overcome individual missing or incomplete discrepancies,
resulting in an accurate picture of current logistics education.
The first data collection phase uses a series of screening criteria in identifying
relevant logistics/SCM educational organizations.
The original listing is composed of the following:
(1) The web sites of the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP,
previously known as Council of Logistics Management, USA). The list of
university listings originally developed by CSCMP (www.cscmp.org) is the most
comprehensive single source to identify colleges and universities that offer
logistics-related courses and contains a listing of 224 academic institutions around
the world. More than 50 percent of the listed schools (123 schools) are located in
the USA while the rest (101) on the list are grouped by country and listed in the
alphabetical order as follows: Argentina (2), Australia (2), Canada (6), Chile (1),
Denmark (4), Finland (7), France (1), Germany (44), Hong Kong (1), Hungary (1),
Japan (4), Mexico (1), The Netherlands (3), New Zealand (1), Poland (3), Singapore
(1), Spain (1), Sweden (7), Switzerland (2), Taiwan (3), Thailand (1), UK (5). To help
balance the geographic representation, the following complementary measures are
taken with a focus on the European and Asian regions.
(2) Rankings of top 25 logistics programs in the SCM discipline by US News &
World Report (USs Best Graduate Schools) 2004 Edition, US News & World
Report (USs Best Colleges) 2004 Edition. In spite of some considerable
controversy, the annual college/department rankings conducted by US News &
World Report are heavily relied upon by both prospective students and
academic community (Vojak et al., 2003).
(3) Leading logistics journals. Journal of Business Logistics, International Journal of
Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, International Journal of Logistics
Management, and Supply Chain Management: An International Journal. One of
major objectives for a leading journal is to attract its share of publishable
articles from all constituencies of the intended academic community, in our
case, logistics (Vojak et al., 2003). As identified in a comprehensive survey of
47 logistics publications by Gibson and Hanna (2003), the four leading academic
journals used in this study are rated as important journals with a focus on
logistics. Authors who published their work in these leading journals during
1997-2003 are more likely to have a close ties with the logistics community
and pay careful attention to recent developments in logistics education and

industry needs.
(4) Europe. The attendance list of academic participants in a major annual
European logistics conference (10th International Symposium on Logistics) held
in July 2005, Portugal, is of great use in identifying logistics programs offered
around the world especially in Europe.
(5) Asia. A research report by Wu (2004) contains a great deal of logistics
information from 14 nations. In addition, the paper also collects data from
Taiwans Ministry of Education (including the Academy Evaluation Committee,
Department of Higher Education). As for China, logistics college data come from
three sources:
.
Logistics & Material Handling Magazine (LMH, 2002).
.
2003 China Logistics Development Bluebook (BTU, 2003) and 2002 Report of
China Logistics Development (NETC, 2003).
.
China Logistics Conference Proceedings (Ho and Lee, 2002).
(6) Ohio State University Logistics Academic Hiring Survey 2003 (as of June 9,
2004). Updated by the Ohio State University on a periodical basis, this is the
eighth annual survey of logistics academic career opportunities (Cooper and
Santosa, 2004). The intention of this survey is to get a general idea regarding the
supply of and demand for PhD graduates in logistics. As of June 9, 2004,
50 departments projected openings are listed in the survey.
Data analysis
After removing duplicates and inaccessible units, a total of 217 academic units are
obtained for later screening.
Identification of logistics-related programs. The second phase of the study is to select
the appropriate departments/programs under study. In consideration of the core focus
on logistics/SCM, the samples of this study must be much associated with
logistics/SCM rather than having a core concentration on other academic fields such as
marketing or transportation. A management or transportation department may
provide several courses associated with logistics, but unlike a logistics department the
business/transportation department certainly is unlikely to put as much effort into
such courses as it is not its core area and has little bearing on its future development.
To help define our sample pool and focus our conclusion, an academic department
which does not emphasize logistics as its major is excluded from our analysis. For
instance, programs/departments solely named as marketing or transportation are
removed from later analysis. To become a candidate for further study, at least part of a
departments name must contain the words logistics or supply chain. An
assumption behind using this stringent criterion is that the department name is highly
likely to reflect the curriculum design for the department of interest. On top of the
department name requirement, the department web sites with no or inadequate course
data are also eliminated from the list, resulting in a final list of 77 universities and
96 departments for later analysis. The data collection effort continued until September
31, 2006. Data updated or web sites established after then are not included in the study.
After obtaining an overwhelming amount of data, the data analysis phase involves
data reduction, classification, and recoding based on the course information accessible
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on the web sites. By transforming qualitative data into simple quantitative variables,
this study applies simple descriptive statistics and a x 2 test for the purpose of
comparison.
Results
Regional analysis
As shown in Table I, logistics education in the North America, and in particular in the
USA, accounts for the largest share in our sample, 60 percent of the total schools (46/77)
and 66.7 percent of the total programs (64/96) and Asia accounts for the second share,
23 percent of the total schools (18/77) and 19.8 percent of the total programs (19/96) in
logistics. These numbers indicate that logistics education in Asia is receiving growing
attention and much work in developing logistics curriculum is under work. For
instance, Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, a renowned academic
institution both in Asia and in the world, has recently changed the department name
from the Department of Industrial Engineering to the Department of Industrial
Engineering and Logistics Management, to reflect its current course content to better
position itself in the logistics field.
The results also surprising and interesting, as the second place is obtained by the
Asian region rather than Europe, which has a closer historical tie with the
North America and also a language advantage. Since, the analysis is mainly based on
the web data written in English, it was naturally expected by us that the western
nations should acquire the top spots in the ranking. Instead, as presented earlier, Asia
takes the second place in the ranking, ahead of Europe and Australia. Our analysis
shows that nations in Asia were willing to invest resources in developing their web
sites in English, and are more aggressive at exposing themselves to the outside world
than their European and Australian counterparts. In todays internet era, such a
proactive approach certainly demonstrates their intension to outreach and strengthens
their efforts to attract more international students who are interested in pursuing
degrees in logistics/SCM at their institutions.
As mentioned earlier, the course data of the study are extracted from the web sites
written in English. Despite over 100 logistics institutions being located in Europe,
our findings show that very few pay attention to providing information about their
course curriculum online for the international community. This inaccessibility may
impede academic exchange with foreign logistics students and educators, and thus the
long-term development of logistics education in that department. Conversely, the
Asian region is gaining increasing attention around the world and now invests a great
deal of resources into establishing the logistics infrastructures and promoting logistics
education. The logistics development in this region, except for Japan, relatively lags
behind its western counterparts. The number of colleges/universities offering academic
Region
Table I.
Logistics programs
distribution among
different regions
North America
Europe (UK)
NZ and Australia
Asia
Total
Schools no.
Percentage
Programs no.
Percentage
46
4
9
18
77
60
5
12
23
100
64
4
9
19
96
66.7
4.2
9.3
19.8
100
degrees in logistics is expanding at an amazing speed. The educational authorities in

some non-English countries, like Taiwans Ministry of Education, also require all
universities to provide detailed course descriptions/syllabi posted on the web site. Each
academic program in Taiwan is encouraged to provide an English version to the
outside world in order to promote the concept of globalization and keep the
international community informed.
Country analysis. The study performs a country analysis for the largest nation in
each of the three regions (Asia, the North America, Europe) in terms of logistics
universities included in the study. The following section provides a brief course
analysis for the USA (North America), the UK (Europe) and China (Asia).
To simplify the grouping task, the grouping principle is solely based on the name of the
course. Hence, although the courses are categories arbitrarily by the authors, no systematic
or significant grouping bias or mistakes are perceived to exist. Another classification
principle is that each course can only be categorized into a single course/area.
USA. Totally 45 universities in the USA are selected in total so as to understand the
current trends of logistics curriculum in the US universities, which are presented in
Table II. The top four logistics/SCM course areas above 10 percent in the USA are
logistics (29 percent), others (14 percent), information technology (12 percent), and
operations management (11 percent).
Like other departments around the world, it is very common that a logistics
department offers Others courses (also called General Education) either to help
logistics students enrich themselves toward a professional career path or to broaden
their future career opportunities into other fields. The Others area consists of a wide
variety of courses (e.g. seminar, strategy, internship, negotiation, laws, ethics, and
contracting) and is ranked in the second place, the two most popular courses are seminar
and strategy, accounting for one third of the course composition each, as shown in
Table II. Supply chain and logistics are the two main subjects discussed in this area.
Course area
Logistics
Others
IT
Operations management
Transportation
Marketing
Management
Statistics
Finance
Warehousing
Others
Seminar
Strategy
Internship
Negotiation
Law
Ethics
Contracting
Rank
Percentage
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
7
9
9
29
14
12
11
9
7
6
6
3
3
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
35
31
11
9
6
5
3
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Table II.
Logistics curriculum in
the USA
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A few courses are devoted to transportation systems and purchasing, while corporate
strategies center around the discussion of how a firm makes use of management and
IT and how to respond to environmental changes. In comparison with other nations, as
shown in Tables II-IV, the USA certainly gives a lot of attention to seminars. Information
technology, e-commerce, and management information technology are also important
course subjects. According to van Hoek (1998), there will be a pressing need to create
512
Table III.
Logistics curriculum
in UK
Table IV.
Logistics curriculum in
China (including HK)
Course area
Logistics
Transportation
Statistics
Others
Management
IT
Marketing
Finance
Warehousing
Others
Strategy
Law
Internship
Seminar
Ethics
Negotiation
Contracting
Course area
Logistics
Others
Finance
IT
Transportation
Management
Statistics
Operation management
Marketing
Warehousing
Others
Strategy
Seminar
Ethics
Law
Contracting
Negotiation
Internship
Rank
Percentage
1
2
3
4
4
6
6
8
9
10
26
15
10
9
9
8
8
7
6
2
1
2
3
4
4
6
7
31
28
14
13
13
1
0
Rank
Percentage
1
2
3
4
5
5
7
8
9
9
27
15
12
10
8
8
7
5
4
4
1
2
3
4
5
5
7
27
16
14
12
11
11
9
information systems that can function in multiple currencies and languages and
simultaneously communicate inventory, track shipments and provide other data among
different regions. In the context of global operations, international supply chain
managers should be highly familiar with the functional implications of IT (Tyndall et al.,
1998). The perceived importance of IT in logistics prompts logisticians to develop their
knowledge of the field. In comparison, the top five courses chosen by logistics executives
in the 2003 career survey of OSU (La Londe and Ginter, 2003) who were returning to
school for a period of 90 days were as follows: IT; supply chain integration; customer
service/value; CPFR, and logistics functional integration in order of preference. This
phenomenon indicates that most logistics departments in all regions are not only
devoted to enhancing their core courses, but also try to broaden students professional
horizons to get them connected with international logistics issues.
UK. In the UK, the development of logistics education has been occasioned by a
growing awareness of the major cost savings possible and the increased potential
available through a re-appraisal of the corporate distribution system, realizations
which have created a need for distribution planning education (Cowell, 1998). Four
universities in the UK are selected in total so as to understand the current trends of
logistics curriculum in the UK, which are shown in Table III.
As shown in Table III, the top four logistics areas in the UK are logistics (26 percent),
transportation (15 percent), operations management (10 percent), statistics (9 percent),
among which logistics holds the largest share at 26 percent. On top of core logistics
courses, it is found that the logistics curricula in the UK also place an emphasis on
transportation and analysis tools. Overall, quantitative analysis skills are a must for a
logistics major in the UK. The UK is committed to integrated logistics planning
(Hernan, 2003), and its logistics curriculum places more emphasis on basic logistics
courses. The course area ranked in the second place is transportation, which accounts
for 20 percent.
Compared to the USA and China, it is more common that the logistics-related
programs/departments in the UK are often a combination of logistics and transportation.
Such emphasis can be found from the department names and is likely due to the fact that
the UK has to rely on imports and exports, and most faculty members associated with
logistics are educators engaged in I/E business, logistics, communication and
management, due to the UKs geographic limitations and market size. Hence, in addition
to the core courses of logistics, transportation courses are also taught in logistics
departments. According to Christopher (1995) and Poist et al. (2001), for the logistics
function, there seems to be many benefits to a European-wide strategic orientation, with
the anticipation of more efficient transportation networks. Emphasis on transportation
in logistics-related programs is also similar to the situation in Taiwan. In terms of
educational development for logistics, the current focus on transportation is of particular
interest because transportation in the UK has never become a subject for advanced
graduate study in universities, and neither, for that matter, was marketing until the
mid-1960s (Christopher et al., 1998).
China. Nine universities in China (and Hong Kong) are selected for this study.
Table IV shows course area rankings based on data from the nine academic institutions.
The top three logistics course areas in China are logistics (27 percent), others (15 percent),
and finance (12 percent). As some logistics programs were traditionally housed in the
industrial/engineering college, manufacturing-related courses in existing logistics
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departments may account for a certain percentage. Nevertheless, the logistics area still
occupies the largest share of 27 percent.
The shortage of capable logisticians in China is due mainly to the long-standing
problems with the education/training system in that country. Unlike other Asian
countries like Singapore, Taiwan, and Korea, where workers are generally highly
qualified and well educated, in a typical Chinese firm, when a worker is at a lower
position level he is highly likely to be poorly educated. This is especially true in the
case of the logistics industry in China. To promote the importance of logistics, an
official logistics certificate issuance system (National Certification Standards:
Logisticians) was established by the China Ministry of Labour & Social Security in
2003 (MOLSS, 2003). Despite recent recognition given to the logistics industry in China,
capable logistics talent is being supplied at far slower speeds than needed by domestic
and foreign companies due to an insufficient number of training coaches and educators
in logistics, and there are only a small number of universities that are capable of
cultivating logistics students. Two logistics course areas are noteworthy in
comparison with the USA and the UK: finance and transportation. The finance area
in particular is emphasized in China. The transportation area receives much lower
priority, while in the western region transportation is deemed critical and essential in
logistics education. Possible explanations for this arrangement are Chinas recent
aggressive economic promotion and investment and its national centralized policy, as
well as local protectionism in transportation and communication. Similar to other
Third World countries (Dadzie, 1998), many physical distribution activities are
strongly controlled or actually performed by state agencies in China. Logistics
educators in China are not necessarily highly educated in the logistics field, and hence
very few high-quality graduate programs are offered to the public (Ho and Lee, 2002).
Course analysis
The findings of Lancioni et al. (2001b) indicate there is a strong relationship between
the schools offering both graduate and undergraduate degrees in logistics and their
ability to provide counseling and job placement services for their students, in that the
larger schools in the USA have the resource base and the reputation of their logistics
programs to attract a large number of firms to hire their graduates.
The undergraduate level. It is important to know, from the global perspective, what
key logistics-related courses are viewed as required by educators. Only those web sites
that supply detailed course information on mandatory and elective courses at the
undergraduate level are selected as inputs into the course analysis. For this, the sample
size is reduced from 77 universities to a total of 44 universities, 22 in the USA, four in
the UK, seven in Taiwan, nine in China (including HK) and two in Australia.
In addition, if the course name contains two or more subjects, such as Logistics and
Transportation, each subject is counted once (one time for logistics management and
one time for transportation management) to simplify the counting process.
Table V tabulates the frequency distribution for mandatory and elective courses
offered in logistics at the undergraduate level. The top three compulsory courses in
logistics are logistics management, transportation management, and supply chain
management, indicating that logistics management is the one subject that is given the
most attention in logistics-related departments. The top three elective courses are
logistics management, seminar, and supply chain management, indicating that in
Mandatory course
Logistics management
Transportation management
Supply chain management
Economics
Statistics
Computer application
Accounting/finance
Seminar
Purchasing management
Management theory and practice
Elective course
Seminar
Internet application
Economics
Marketing management
Internship
Accounting/finance
Statistics
Rank
Frequency
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
62
33
30
25
24
23
21
20
16
14
1
2
3
4
4
6
6
8
9
9
24
16
14
11
11
9
9
8
6
6
elective courses, the emphasis is also placed on logistics management while the
logistics education community tends to use the seminar course as a supplementary
teaching channel to address a variety of contemporary logistics issues due it its
flexibility advantage. Courses with an impact on a firms bottom line are also
highlighted, such as economics, accounting/financing, and purchasing. As early as in
the 1970s, the advent and perceived importance of information systems in logistics
prompted logistics managers to have sound knowledge in the field (Leenders and
Fearon, 1992). The 1990s started offering new opportunities to the industry through an
array of new and high-information technology (Razzaque and Sirat, 2001). All these
changes have made contemporary logistics highly complex and challenging, and
redefined the roles and scope of logistics managers. The senior logistics executives of
today and the future are more likely to have strong academic training in logistics with
an emphasis on computer, technical and general management skills (Buxbaum, 1995).
To have efficient smooth logistics/SCM operations, the importance of information
technology in all logistics-related activities such as transprortation/disbribution,
inventory control, data processing and optimization, ERP, CRM, production
scheduling, and materials management cannot be overemphasized. Efficient logistics
and smooth supply chain management will not be possible without sufficient IT
support. Consequently, students are also expected to be armed with computing skills to
catch the todays EC/internet wave. The integration of skills between IT and logistics
for a logistics graduate is necessary to meet their future career challenges.
The graduate level. By the same token, this study removes all graduate programs
with incomplete information or without compulsory and elective courses from our
analysis, resulting in a total of 32 graduate schools (19 in the USA, four in the UK, three
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Table V.
Worldwide logistics
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Table VI.
Worldwide logistics
courses offered at the
graduate level
in Taiwan and six in Australia). As we can see from Table VI, the top three mandatory
courses offered at the graduate level globally are logistics management, supply chain
management, and seminar, among which logistics management is offered 34 times
the most popular topic, as anticipated. As for the elective courses, a similar design
strategy is also utilized at the graduate level. The top three elective courses are ranked
by frequency as seminar, logistics management, and e-commerce, indicating that all
three are considered very critical for graduate course offerings. Based on pilot projects
at the University of Calgary in Canada, Grant (2001) describes and recommends the use
of seminar or block formats in delivering logistics courses, which means designing and
delivering undergraduate business logistics and services marketing courses in a spring
session as intensive, one-week seminar or block courses instead of the regular six-week
course format. The block format courses are often composed of a short-term, but with
intensive seminar courses instead of the regular length course format. Grant suggests
that the successful results of block courses may help differentiate an institution from
its competitors and give them a competitive advantage or niche with this unique
delivery format.
Unlike those at the graduate level, it seems from the top ten undergraduate logistics
courses that some important subjects, such as materials/inventory control, operations
management, distribution management, and international/global logistics, are missing
along the logistics course chain. The undergraduate level should not ignore the
importance of integration among key logistics issues. The department should shoulder
the responsibility for enhancing core logistics courses and have more professional
Mandatory course
Seminar
Purchasing management
International logistic
Materials management
Distribution system management
Business logistics
Simulation
Elective course
Seminar
E-commerce
Decision support and expert system
Production development
Financial management
Management information system
Business negotiation
Rank
Frequency
1
2
3
4
5
6
6
7
8
8
10
34
28
19
12
10
8
8
7
6
6
5
1
2
3
4
4
6
7
7
8
8
8
21
14
10
8
8
7
6
6
5
5
5
course offerings to produce competent graduates that have the ability to solve real
world problems. It is no doubt that the students understanding of integrated
logistics/supply chain management will not be completed and thorough if the student
is not equipped with broad yet sufficient knowledge about inbound logistics
(inventory, operations) and outbound logistics (distribution and global logistics).
In addition, only when a student has a firm grasp of all key logistics activities is it
possible for them to understand the delicate relationship among the key stakeholders
along the chain.
The importance of integration in logistics cannot be overemphasized. In our
traditional thinking, due to the higher number of credit hours graduation requirements
and the longer period of learning, when compared to research-oriented graduate
students course-oriented undergraduate students should have more opportunities to
learn every integral part of logistics/SCM in addition to the overall introductory
courses in logistics (e.g. logistics, SCM). Logisticians will find it difficult to maximize
the effectiveness and efficiency of SCM without a firm understanding of these critical
issues. Thus, the logistics curriculum offered at the graduate level is more likely to
form a complete SCM from outside to inside, from upstream to downstream. As
presented in Table VI, graduate students can learn almost every key area during their
relatively short graduate life: purchasing, materials, operations, transportation,
distribution, and international logistics, a complete supply chain.
Courses classified by area. Regardless of whether they are mandatory or elective,
information based on courses from 77 universities are accumulated and classified into
specific areas: logistics, transportation, warehousing, statistics, operations
management, marketing, finance, information technology, management and others. In
addition to the simple number count approach, this study also performs a weighted
ranking by factoring the credit hours into our calculation to reflect each courses true
weight/importance. In Table VII, logistics courses account for the largest proportion,
23 percent, nearly a quarter of the total number of courses, and this is followed by
others transportation information technology which account for 10-15 percent,
with the three holding nearly the same share. In sum, logistics transportation
information, technology management account for 56 percent of the total number of
courses offered, which are the majority of courses offered in logistics departments while
finance and warehousing are the two areas that account for the smallest shares.
Rank
Areas
1
2
3
4
5
6
6
6
9
10
Logistics
Others
Transportation
Information technology
Management
Marketing
Statistics
Finance
Warehousing
Total
Credit hours
Percentage
1,377
912
849
756
447
435
402
393
375
183
6,129
22
15
14
12
7
7
7
6
6
3
100
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Table VII.
Course classification by
course area
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Logistics curriculum for developed and developing nations. The classifications into
developed or developing nations in our sample are based on the membership status
with which they enter into the WTO. Developed nations include the USA, Australia,
the UK, Canada, and New Zealand, etc. with a total of 59 universities, while developing
nations, including China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, etc. contain 18 universities.
As presented in Table VIII, by a simple comparison, it is found that the top five
logistics course areas for the developed group are logistics (28 percent), others
(12 percent), IT (12 percent), transportation (11 percent), and OM (10 percent) while for
the developing group the transportation (20 percent) area is favored while OM
(4 percent) is relatively neglected in comparison with the developed group. The main
reason for this situation is a result of the contribution made by a major member of the
developing group, Taiwan, where logistics programs in large part are traditionally
considered part of the transportation field. A clear trend in Table VIII also suggests
that logistics curricula in the developing nations are not just mainly associated
with transportation, but deal with the integrated issues in logistics. Statistically
speaking, the x 2 test shows that no significant difference is found between developed
and developing nations in logistics/SCM curriculums.
Furthermore, this result is also consistent with the findings of Razzaque and
Sirat (2001) that transportation skills are highly desired in developing nations. On
the contrary, in the western region, in the USA, todays logistics education is
much more associated with the business/management department and industrial
engineering/management department, in that transportation alone can no longer cover
the various logistics needs and activities (CLM, 2004). It should be noted that since
Rank
Table VIII.
Comparison of logistics
curriculum (developed
nations vs developing
nations)
Developed nations
1
2
2
4
5
6
6
8
9
10
Developing nations
1
2
3
4
5
6
6
8
9
10
Course area
Percentage
Logistics
Others
Transportation
IT
Marketing
Management
Statistics
Finance
Warehousing
28
12
12
11
10
7
7
6
4
3
Transportation
Logistics
Others
IT
Management
Finance
Statistics
Marketing
Warehousing
20
18
16
14
8
6
6
5
4
3
Note: The x 2 test shows no statistical difference at the level of 0.1
US universities account for 60 percent of the surveyed ones in developed nations, the
result may have a bias towards US logistics universities.
In addition to the core concentration on logistics in the others area, logistics-related
departments in developed nations focus on the case study approach and corporate
strategy. Courses regarding management, global strategy management, human
resources management, organization theory and technology management are often
offered, which have developed from traditional logistics functions such as distribution,
warehousing, inventory into integrated 3PL activities, and from the move to
globalization, which stresses seamless collaboration with major supply chain partners
around the world. Thus, many management-related courses are offered to students to
meet such needs. As for the developing group, the others area is mainly dominated by
such courses as logistics case study topics and courses which focus on law, for
instance, business law. According to Gammelgaard and Larson (2001), through
development of context-bases cases, logistics educators can enhance the analytic and
intuitive abilities of students. There is no doubt that most of state-of-the-art logistics
concepts and tools are promoted and advanced by developed nations. In comparison,
developing nations have a shorter history of a logistics industry, so they lag far behind
in terms of fundamental management of logistics, while their transportation network
infrastructure systems is also inadequate (Table VIII).
Logistics curriculum for island nations and continental nations. According to the
definitions of the UN sea law, any land area that is surrounded by waters from four
directions, is above the water surface in case of high tides, and came into being
naturally is an island nation, while others are continental nations. Based on this UN
geographical definition, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the UK, and New Zealand are grouped
into the island nations (117 universities) while the USA, China, Australia, and Canada
belong to the continental group, with 61 universities analyzed.
In Table IX, course offerings in continental nations show that major subjects such
as logistics, information technology, and operations management are ranked important
logistics areas. Most of the logistics departments in these nations were originally
affiliated with manufacturing, logistics and supply chain, while the courses offered by
departments in island nations show that transportation, logistics, and information
technology are ranked in the first three places. Firstly, island nations are generally
smaller than continental nations in terms of geographic size and have to rely on sea
and air transportation in addition to inland cargo transportation, so it is necessary to
emphasize sufficient knowledge of transportation and logistics in the course design.
Secondly, most of the logistics departments are originally affiliated with
transportation-related departments, resulting in a focus on transportation courses.
Nevertheless, the one thing that remains essential for both groups is an emphasis on
IT, and this arrangement reflects the critical role IT plays in todays
communication-intensive logistics activities. Despite a slight difference in the
ranking between the two groups, the top ten logistics courses taught are exactly
the same. Again there is no significant difference between the continental group and
the island group in the top ten list.
Academic background of US logistics faculty. Rutner et al. (1996) point out that one of
the barriers to the development of logistics programs caused by the lack of resources is
associated with whether there is a trained faculty to develop and teach such courses.
Smith et al. (1997) also present a similar argument, that in addition to students, faculty,
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Table IX.
Comparison of logistics
curriculum (continental
nations vs island nations)
Rank
Continental nations
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Island nations
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
8
10
Course area
Percentage
Logistics
Others
IT
Transportation
Marketing
Management
Statistics
Finance
Warehousing
28
15
12
11
9
7
6
5
4
3
Transportation
Logistics
Others
IT
Management
Statistics
Finance
Marketing
Warehousing
22
18
14
12
9
8
7
4
4
2
Note: The x 2 test shows no statistical difference at the level of 0.1
and university resources, the barriers limiting the integration and practice of logistics
education in colleges and universities are grouped into three subjects: computer
hardware, computer software, and educational resources.
Vojak et al. (2003) perform statistical analyses of 13 years of the US News & World
Report graduate program reputation rankings for engineering colleges and their
constitutive departments and find that college rank is much more closely related to
department rank for some disciplines (e.g. mechanical engineering and electrical
engineering) than others (e.g. industrial engineering and bioengineering). There is no
doubt that a strong faculty team is a must for a successful academic program, and it is
good to see that colleges offering logistics/SCM programs generally have good
academic reputations (US News, 2004b).
Based on the accessible data about faculties academic background, 384 educators
are identified in our collected logistics programs, of which, 256 educators give
information on the academic institutions where they received their doctoral degrees.
However, only 195 faculty members provided their academic fields during their PhD
study on their web sites. The study finds that 183 logistics educators graduated from
one of the top 100 US universities (US News, 2004a), accounting for 71 percent of the
population. In addition, 96 percent of the top 25 US universities in the 2003 rankings of
logistics/SCM are placed among top 100 universities in the USA, except for the Arizona
State University-Main Campus (Carey), which is ranked 128th. It is impressive that
60 percent of universities offering logistics program are listed among the top 30,
indicating most of the US logistics programs are generally offered by universities with
strong academic reputations.
As shown in Table X, faculty with a PhD degree in marketing take the first place,
followed by areas in business, IE, logistics, and MIS. However, these results should be
viewed with caution. For instance, the logistics program at Ohio State University is
titled Marketing and Logistics, with a clear focus on marketing as well. For graduate
study at master and doctoral level, the importance of the marketing and logistics areas
are heavily stressed. We also find that faculty with strong background in these two
areas are most sought after by these department. As a result, it is expected that the
percentage of faculty in marketing is much higher than that in other academic fields.
Such overemphasis on marketing is likely to twist the overall picture of logistics
education in the USA. In addition, this marketing preference will have a major impact
on the direction of the logistics curriculum in a department. This situation also reflects
the current shortage of logistics faculty.
Research interests of US logistics faculty. The findings of Lancioni et al. (2001b) show
that the research output of the logistics faculty at universities offering degrees at both
graduate and undergraduate levels tends to be extensive and varied. Since, the current
Rank
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
US logistics faculty
Academic background
No
Percentage
Marketing
Business administration
IE
Logistics
Management information system
Transportation
Economics
Supply chain
Information system
Engineering
Decision sciences
Statistics
Technology management
Finance
Society
Accounting
Purchasing
Communication
Production management
Civil engineering
Aeronautics
Law
Mechanical engineering
Manufacturing
Industrial organization psychology
Instruction system technology
International business
Public policy
Mathematics
Chemistry
Distribution
Total
38
26
25
21
11
9
8
8
8
6
4
4
3
2
2
2
2
2
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
195
19.49
13.33
12.82
10.77
5.64
4.62
4.10
4.10
4.10
3.08
2.05
2.05
1.54
1.03
1.03
1.03
1.03
1.03
1.03
0.51
0.51
0.51
0.51
0.51
0.51
0.51
0.51
0.51
0.51
0.51
0.51
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Table X.
Academic background of
us logistics faculty
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Table XI.
Research areas of us
logistics faculty
supply of logistics educators can hardly meet the growing diverse demand, and it is not
rare that a faculty may shift their research interests to another field(s) and/or pursue
other research areas after graduation. It is worth understanding the research areas the
current logistics professors are exploring. Through breaking down the faculty
background and faculty research interests, we can obtain a broader picture of
a departments curriculum design and its future direction. As mentioned earlier, the
department can also examine its curriculum structure to see if its logistics curriculum
is tilted toward a direction away from logistics, and this can serve as a reference for
faculty recruiting considerations.
The generalization of the research area analysis must also be viewed with caution, in
that many web sites under study have no data about faculty research interests available
to the public. The sample for this analysis consists of 350 logistics educators in 26 US
universities. This analysis can provide a rough idea about the expertise areas of the
logistics educators in the USA. All research areas are roughly grouped into 11 major
areas, as presented in Table XI. Research interests data are totally based on inputs on the
faculty web sites, while classification of numerous specific research topics into the
11 broad research areas is subject to the authors personal judgment. For instance, for a
professor who has interest in pursuing areas in e-learning, web-enabled databases, and
knowledge management, the first two items are grouped into the IT area and each item is
counted once while the last item is classified into the management area. During the data
collection process it is found that a number of logistics educators list more than four
research areas, indicating their broad research interests and flexibility.
An important finding from this study, based on the authors observation, is that most
of the logistics professors are not limited to their past academic training. The authors
find that a large number of logistics educators now pursue logistics-related research
topics which are greatly different from the research areas/topics they worked on in the
past. Being willing to be flexible in research and teaching shows a positive sign in
logistics education, as contemporary logistics education certainly requires educators
with a flexible and adaptive mind to meet todays evolving challenges. Although it
makes perfect sense that junior educators are highly likely to embark on their academic
career based on their past doctoral training, a well-positioned logistics curriculum in the
department they serve will motivate these junior educators to engage in
research/teaching in logistics fields to which they may not have been much exposed
to in the past. Instead, they are more willing to take on other research challenges toward
Rank
US logistics faculty
Research areas
No
Percentage
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Logistics
IT
Marketing
IE
Transportation
Management
Statistics
Economics
Finance
Laws
139
116
105
97
65
60
49
24
12
5
21
17
16
14
10
9
7
4
2
1
other areas after graduation, no matter whether such changes in research areas are
voluntary or reluctant. For instance, according to Keolanui and Wood (1998),
transportation teachers are not much in demand, and doctoral students in transportation
often need to prepare themselves to teach in a second field such as marketing or finance.
This rather dour outlook for transportation graduates in the USA is also supported in an
article by Ruppenthal (1998), a situation in contrast to a very positive view on
transportation education in Canada.
Regarding the most popular research areas for US logistics educators, Logistics, as
expected, is in the first place, followed by IT, marketing, IE, and transportation ranked
from second to fifth, respectively, (Table XI) despite the fact that there are only 29
logistics educators with a logistics/SCM PhD degree (Table X).
Conclusions
Owing to the increasing popularity of logistics as a major and the demand for logistics
professionals in industry, demand for logistics graduates expands each year. The role
of a university is to provide students with the education they need to be successful in
life. A career in logistics and supply chain management is one that all schools should
be able to provide for their graduates (Lancioni et al., 2001b).
This study provides the first empirical analysis of logistics course offered
worldwide and describes the overall picture of logistics curriculum from different
perspectives. Consistent with previous literature (Lancioni et al., 2001a), another
research finding based on the authors observation during the data collection
process but not shown in the tables provided is that the course portfolio of these
logistics programs varies from school to school with some as separate academic
departments, whereas other programs are associated with existing academic programs
such as marketing, transportation, and operation management.
To address the research questions, this study has the following findings. These
findings generally are consistent with several previous studies that offer insights
regarding the skill requirements for logistics professionals. First, the logistics course
design for undergraduate students tends to be function-oriented. One of the surprising
outcomes of the research is that a critical internal logistics activity, production
operations/management, is not listed among the top ten mandatory and elective courses.
Lack of knowledge about internal operation management will hinder efforts to make the
supply chain complete and efficient. Compared with the undergraduate courses,
the graduate logistics courses are more integrated and well designed, despite the lesser
credit hours requirement. Also, seminars are heavily utilized into the logistics curriculum
at the graduate level to address contemporary logistics issues. For example, scenarios
for research currently being written at Bradford Center very much around the need for
action-directed research (Christopher et al., 1998). In addition to the core logistics courses,
courses contained in the Others area are deemed important for logistics students, such as
seminars, strategy, internship, negotiation, and so on. A simple country comparison
is performed among three major nations in different regions: China in Asia, UK in Europe,
and USA in North America, indicating some differences in course focus do exist, though
these have not been statistically tested. In addition to logistics and others as the top two
areas, China puts Finance in the third place while IT is considered the next important
course to teach in the USA. In the UK, transportation and operations management are
viewed as more important than others and IT.
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Second, a difference in logistics courses between developed nations and developing

nations is how they view the role of transportation in their logistics curriculum.
Overall, transportation is given the most attention in developing nations partly because
logistics education generally originated from the transportation departments and the
relatively inadequate transportation infrastructures in these nations. Third, the island
nations also pay much more attention to transportation-related skills. Their different
emphasis in logistics education may be partly explained by their economic status and
need for growth. For the developing group, to support its economic development,
fundamental transportation infrastructure is in particularly urgent demand and still
at the growth stage, so transportation issues are an important subject for students to
learn. In contrast, developed nations have better transportation infrastructure in place,
and can now direct their attention to how to move goods along the supply chain more
efficiently rather than viewing transportation as the top one priority to deal with.
Another difference in course arrangement between the continental group and the
island group is in the operations management area. For the continental group,
operations management is ranked in the fourth place, suggesting a great deal of
attention is given to the production/manufacturing activity, while it receives much
lower priority in the island group, ranked only 9th. Since, OM is much associated with
the field of industrial engineering, a possible reason for this disparity is that the
continental nations, overall speaking, have much more manufacturing activities,
resources and needs than the island nations. Again, in addition to the core logistics
concentration, information technology-related courses are heavily integrated into
logistics education to meet todays IT demands.
This study shows that logistics educators have received rigorous academic training,
as 71 percent of the faculty surveyed graduated from one of the top 100 universities.
About 56 percent of US logistics faculty obtain their PhD degrees in four
fields: marketing (19.49 percent), management (13.33 percent), IE (12.82 percent), and
logistics (10.77 percent), ranked in the order of percentage. Of the top 25 logistics/SCM
programs ranked by the US News & World Report, all but one are also ranked among
the top 100 universities. This evidence indicates that schools offering excellent logistics
programs are also positively associated with their overall academic reputations.
Obviously, the strong positive relationship between department rank and college rank
exists not only in the engineering field (Vojak et al., 2003) but also in the logistics field.
In addition, the study also finds that logistics educators have multiple research
interests other than their academic training during their doctoral study, and thus are
more willing to explore other research areas after graduation. Logistics, IT, and
marketing are the top three research areas chosen by the logistics educators.
In conclusion, there are a number of essential skills a competent logistician needs to
possess to meet requirements of industry (Langley and Mundy, 1978). As logistics
education is dynamic and ever changing, a truly integrated and effective logistics
program can help students to keep pace with the business world and be equipped with
the skills industry desires, resulting in more successful job placements and a
significant reduction in training costs by industry.
Research limitations and future research directions
Although the authors make every effort to be comprehensive in data gathering, the
study does suffer some limitations. First, the analyses conducted in the study are
strictly descriptive and subject to the universities surveyed and the data provided by
the universities. The major limitation of the study is the existence of relatively few
logistics programs with complete information on their web sites, despite the large
number of logistics programs initially identified. Therefore, the results of the present
study should be taken with caution and considered exploratory. Second, language
barriers pose a serious problem in data collection for logistics programs that do not
have course information in English available on their web sites. Examples are France
and Spain in Europe, and Japan, South Korea and Thailand in Asia. Third, apart from
the limitations common to any research involving sampling, the study might have
some additional limitations. It is not difficult to appreciate that each nation sets up its
own educational standards for higher education. Moreover, what should be taught in
both undergraduate and post-graduate levels is not a subject of clear agreement
in logistics. Finally, the results may not entirely and accurately reflect the logistics
curriculum offered in a region or worldwide. Also, even though courses may share the
same name, they may have dramatically different teaching focus and course contents.
Nevertheless, a well-orchestrated logistics curriculum planning must be based on a
firm grasp of the current trends in logistics. Despite the above-mentioned limitations,
our simple but important findings provide logistics educators with an overall factual
picture of logistics education by region, faculty, and course.
These study findings have implications for a number of parties including educators,
students, and practitioners. From a practitioner perspective, the logistics managers can
have a pretty good idea about what kinds of professional knowledge and skills the
logistics students have received at school, whether such skills are sufficient enough to
the industry and, if not, what additional training needs to be given to the students.
Information on these issues can have direct managerial implications on logistics
human resource management, hiring policy, and training program. Our results may
help logisticians to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses, making improvements
where needed. Since, the results identify which courses/skills are taught in school,
employers may use them as guidelines in recruiting new logistics personnel or
designing future training courses. This research also enables logistics educators in
other countries to compare their logistics curriculum with those discussed in the study.
Logistics educators should also integrate the findings of the study in their logistics
course offerings so as to keep pace with the global trend. From a student perspective,
the findings should prove useful in terms of identifying the educational preparation
expected during their undergraduate or graduate study. To work overseas, after
self-examination of strengths and weaknesses, students can be prepared to compete
with the local students in the region where they intend to work.
Future directions for the research may conduct a more detailed content analysis on the
data or perform statistical analyses to test some relevant research hypotheses. Another
direction would be to replicate this study at a future date to see if logistics curricula change
quickly over time. Such information is important to help logistics educators understand if
what they teach in the classroom keeps abreast of industry demands.
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About the author
Yen-Chun Jim Wu is an Associate Professor of the Department of Logistics Management at
National Kaohsiung First University of Science and Technology, Taiwan. His papers have
appeared in Sloan Management Review, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management,
International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Supply Chain Management:
An International Journal, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and
Technology, International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, International
Journal of Logistics Management, European Journal of Operational Research, Transportation
Research Part A, International Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, and Journal
of Enterprise Information Management. His research interests include supply chain
management, technology management, and lean manufacturing. He holds a PhD in
Industrial and Operations Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA.
Yen-Chun Jim Wu can be contacted at: yenchun@ccms.nkfust.edu.tw
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International Journal of Physical

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and pay careful attention to recent developments in logistics education and

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degrees in logistics is expanding at an amazing speed. The educational authorities in

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Note: The x 2 test shows no statistical difference at the level of 0.1

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Note: The x 2 test shows no statistical difference at the level of 0.1

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Second, a difference in logistics courses between developed nations and developing

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