Skill requirements of contemporary senior- and entry-level logistics managers: a comparative analysis

Transportation Journal, Summer, 2006 by Paul R. Murphy, Richard F. Poist

Abstract

While there is little question that the logistician's role(s) and responsibilities have undergone dramatic change in recent years, managerial skills and knowledge remain the foundation of effective and efficient logistics management. With this in mind, this article uses Poist's (1984) BLM (Business, Logistics, Management)framework to compare skill requirements for senior-and entry-level logistics managers. The article reports findings from a survey of U.S.-based search firms that engage in the recruitment and placement of managers in logistics, transportation, supply chain management, and related fields. Consistent with previous research based on the BLM framework, results from the present study indicate that management skills are most important for both senior-and entry-level managers, followed in order by logistics skills and business skills. Having said this, the study finds strong differences between senior- and entry-level personnel within the business, logistics, and management components of the BLM framework.

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Articles associated with human resource issues have appeared in both the logistics practitioner and academic literature for over forty years. For example, an article from the early 1960s indicated that while the changing role of the traffic manager required him (our emphasis) to develop new skills, there was disagreement as to the exact nature of these skills. At that time, the traffic manager's changing role focused primarily on coordinating with the packaging, warehousing, and inventory management activities (Henderson 1963).

Similar to the 1960s, the changing role of today's logistics (or supply chain) manager requires him or her to develop new skills. Unlike the 1960s, however, the logisticians' changing role does not primarily involve coordinating transportation, packaging, warehousing, and inventory management. Rather, the contemporary logisticians' changing role is driven by a number of factors, including globalization, computerization, and cross-firm relationship management. And, unlike the 1960s, there appears to be some consensus on the relevant skills to deal with the changing roles, with leadership recognized as one of the most prominent skills to be developed (Caplice 2005; Hoffman 2005; Skrip 2006).

The relevance of human resource issues for contemporary logistics management is reflected in the recent academic literature. For example, a review of three leading scholarly journals (International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, Journal of Business Logistics, and Transportation Journal) between 2001 and 2005 indicates that about 4.5 percent of all articles address human resource issues. (1) Table 1 provides a brief summary of each of these articles, and closer examination indicates that they can be broadly categorized into two groups: One set of articles focuses on logistics operating employees (such as truck drivers), while the other set focuses on logistics managers.

Furthermore, the articles involving operating employees tend to address two primary themes, namely, safety (Crum and Morrow 2002; Mejza and colleagues 2003) and recruitment/retention (Ellinger and colleagues 2005; Keller 2002; Min and Emam 2003). With respect to the articles involving logistics managers, skills emerges as a major theme (Gammelgaard and Larson 2001; Large 2005; Myers and colleagues 2004; Poist and colleagues 2001; Razzaque and Bin Sirat 2001). The remaining articles involving logistics managers appear to emphasize two other themes, human resource management (Gibson and Cook 2001; Zsidisin and colleagues 2003) and education (Farris and Pohlen 2004; Knemeyer and Murphy 2001, 2002, and 2004).

While Table 1 highlights some of the more recent academic literature devoted to human resource issues in logistics, there are plentiful opportunities for further research on this topic. To this end, this article focuses on managerial skills, in part because managerial skills continue to be a prominent topic in both the practitioner and academic literature. More specifically, this article uses the BLM (Business, Logistics, Management) framework developed by Poist (1984) to compare skill requirements for senior- and entry-level logistics managers.

Briefly, the BLM framework suggests that logistics managers need to exhibit proficiency in three major areas: business skills, logistics skills, and management skills (Poist 1984). Since being proposed approximately twenty years ago, the BLM framework has been empirically investigated--and generally supported--both inside and outside the United States. With respect to inside the United States, a series of BLM studies looked at three separate logistical constituencies--academicians, executive search firms, and practitioners--with respect to the skill requirements of senior-level logisticians (Murphy and Poist 1991a, 1991b, 1993). Each constituency reached the same conclusion, namely, that senior-level logisticians are "managers first and logisticians second."