Title: Innovation management in logistics: an empirical study

Authors: Ingrid Göpfert; Wanja Wellbrock

Addresses: Department for Logistics, Philipps-Universiy of Marburg, Am Plan 2, 35037 Marburg, Germany ' Department for Logistics, Philipps-Universiy of Marburg, Am Plan 2, 35037 Marburg, Germany

Abstract: In this study, we examine the extent to which innovation management is established in business logistics. In addition to the general implementation of an innovation management, the study is also focused on the importance and success of innovations for logistics, the underlying innovation process, corresponding expanses to achieve logistics innovations and relevant innovation triggers. To get significant results, we carried out a questionnaire under the each 100 largest German companies of eight selected industries. In total, we integrated 800 companies in our study and got a response rate of 11%. As main results, we show that despite a fundamentally high importance of innovations in logistics, the corresponding expanses are still relative small. Innovation management is not yet sufficiently implemented in the area of logistics and a structured innovation process is also absent in the majority of companies surveyed. Moreover, we show that innovation management is mostly limited to a single company and a continuous enterprise-wide expansion would be desirable for the future.

Keywords: logistics; supply chain management; SCM; innovation management; innovation process; empirical study; Germany.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLSM.2016.078914

International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management, 2016 Vol.25 No.2, pp.227 - 244

Received: 14 Mar 2015
Accepted: 13 Jul 2015
Published online: 05 Sep 2016 *

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