Effects of Brand Image and Manufacture-3PL Relationship on 3PL Satisfaction: A Theoretical Framework

The trend to use third-party logistics services becomes more prominent especially in the industrializing countries such as China where manufacturing constitutes a major part of the economy. This development poses a great challenge to channel managers in selecting the third-party logistics service providers and evaluating service levels of these providers. Unfortunately, the research nowadays does not provide a sufficient insight on these aspects. Many 3PL studies are descriptive in nature, which address the issues such as the benefits of using 3PL services and the areas to be outsourced. To resolve this challenge in the channel management, it needs to go a step forward in studying the causal relationship between logistics service quality and 3PL satisfaction. Based on the theory in relationship marketing, this paper proposes a research model that incorporates the effects of brand image and manufacture-3PL relationship aims to examine the antecedents and consequences of 3PL satisfaction.