International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics ManagementContemporary logistics education: an international perspectiveYen-Chun Jim Wu

Article information:To cite this document:Yen-Chun Jim Wu, (2007),"Contemporary logistics education: an international perspective", InternationalJournal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, Vol. 37 Iss 7 pp. 504 - 528Permanent link to this document:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09600030710776455

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Users who downloaded this article also downloaded:Richard Lancioni, Howard Forman, Michael F. Smith, (2001),"Logistics and supply chain education:Roadblocks and challenges", International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management,Vol. 31 Iss 10 pp. 733-745 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000006287Heather Lutz, Laura Birou, (2013),"Logistics education: a look at the current state of the art and science",Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, Vol. 18 Iss 4 pp. 455-467 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/SCM-08-2012-0269Remko I. van Hoek, (2001),"Logistics education: Achieving market and research driven skill development",International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, Vol. 31 Iss 7/8 pp. 505-519http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000005906

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Contemporary logisticseducation: an international

perspectiveYen-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 contemporarylogistics curricula from an international perspective.

Design/methodology/approach – Comparative analyses of logistics education are performedamong Europe, North America, and Asia, between developing nations and developed nations, andbetween continental nations and island nations.

Findings – The findings of the study are of value in identifying additional educational needs oflogistics professionals as well as in hiring new professionals.

Originality/value – Little research has been done to understand contemporary logistics education ina comprehensive way. This paper is the first empirical study to use data available on the web sites ofacademic logistics programs to provide descriptive analyses of logistics courses offered at universitiesaround the world.

Keywords Education, Distribution management, Curricula

Paper type Research paper

IntroductionPrevious work has found that in the past many business schools often did not recognizelogistics management as a separate and distinct field, and that there a disagreement as tohow logistics should fit into an undergraduate business curriculum (Langley andMundy, 1978). It was not until 1970 that the study of logistics began to gain popularitydue 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 byInternational Institute for Management Development in its annual worldcompetitiveness ranking (IMD, 2006). Furthermore, the famous annual ranking reporton academic programs released by US News & World Report (www.usnews.com) beganin 2003 to include supply chain management/logistics in its business specialty list. TheSCM/logistics program is the only new educational program that was added to itsannual ranking list of business specialties in recent years. At present, logistics/supplychain management is viewed as a popular academic area around the world.

Many argue that, if strictly defined, there is a clear distinction between supply chainmanagement and logistics, as each deals with a different level of issues. Lambert andCooper (2000) indicate that:

. . . logistics is that part of the supply chain process that plans, implements, and controls theefficient, effective flow and storage of goods, services, and related information from thepoint-of-origin to the point-of-consumption in order to meet customers’ requirements.

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

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Received March 2007Accepted May 2007

International Journal of PhysicalDistribution & Logistics ManagementVol. 37 No. 7, 2007pp. 504-528q Emerald Group Publishing Limited0960-0035DOI 10.1108/09600030710776455

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However, it is obvious that the term “supply chain management” is used in a broadersense than logistics management. However, from the perspectives of management andthe fundamental definitions on logistics/supply chain management, Stock and Lambert(2001) maintain that logistics management in a general sense is very similar to supplychain management, and it is difficult and unnecessary to distinguish between twoterms 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 theseterms, the fact is that in actual business practices these terms many times are usedinterchangeably. Each professional in this field has at least a slightly different interpretationof what each of these terms means. For this reason, terminology will not be an issue if it isassumed that there is some common understanding that any or all of these terms refersgenerally to a comprehensive set of activities relating to the movement and storage of productand information. These activities are all undertaken to achieve two common goals, namely,providing an acceptable level of customer service, and operating a logistics systems toprovide overall conformity to customer requirements.

The major purpose of this study is to provide an overall curriculum analysis foracademic departments with a strong focus on logistics. It is believed that it isinappropriate and almost infeasible to purposely distinguish among programs whichare logistics-oriented and which are supply chain management-oriented. For thisreason, both logistics and supply chain management are viewed as the same area inour study. Hence, the term logistics used throughout our paper also includes supplychain management-related courses.

To meet demand, academic institutions have rushed to develop formal degrees inlogistics at the graduate and undergraduate levels. However, Lancioni et al. (2001a)argue that most logistics programs fail to develop to more accurately reflect theinternational setting and the multi-disciplinary nature of supply chain management.From an industry perspective, there is a long standing disagreement as to how logisticsshould fit into an undergraduate business curriculum and to what extent studentsshould 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 andGinter, 2003) suggest that there is a new generation of logistics graduates who aremaking their way up to the logistics executive levels of their firms. As indicated by vanHoek (2001), rapid changes in practice and further developments in research intologistics are challenging educators to further upgrade their courses. To meet thechanging demands of industry, substantial change in logistics and supply chaineducation is necessary (Gammelgaard and Larson, 2001). A majority of research onlogistics education is limited to a geographical area (Christopher et al., 1998;Gammelgaard, 2001; Grant, 2001; Rutner and Fawcett, 2005) and is largely casestudy-based or survey-based (Rao et al., 1998; Alvarstein and Johannesen, 2001; Ferrinet al., 2001; Gudmundsson and Nijhuis, 2001; Rutner and Fawcett, 2005). The researchinto the current status of logistics programs at the college level has been found to stillbe limited (Lancioni et al., 2001b).

A carefully designed logistics program catering to the needs of a clearly identifiedmarket segment can provide a considerable stimulus and impetus to action (Cowell,1998). Many marketing executives can be encouraged to apply what they learn if theyare 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 havemay 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 atBradford indicate, this means that the company using an external course should take agreat deal of care in its selection of both the participant and the course. Courses shouldbe designed and used to meet needs, and any professional course organizer will bewilling to talk in detail about his program. For like any marketing operation, in thelong-term, the success or failure of the marketing educator’s operation dependsultimately on the success or failure of his programs.

Literature reviewOver the past decade logistics programs in universities have grown dramatically toaccommodate more students at both the graduate and undergraduate levels (Lancioniet al., 2001a). A close look at 317 doctoral dissertations in logistics-related areaspublished during 1992-1998 shows that none of them deals with logistics education atany degree levels (Stock, 2001). This is alarming, since these future logistics educatorsseem to view such issues as unimportant research topics or have no interest in logisticseducation. Hence, it is of no surprise that very little has been documented aboutdoctoral education in the logistics field (Gammelgaard, 2001). Nevertheless, somelogistics scholars are aware of the importance of logistics education/curriculum as aresearch topic and its implications for all stakeholders (Grant, 2001). Two specialissues of the International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management in1998 and 2001 were devoted to addressing the importance of logistics education.

The research by Russell (1998) suggests that the structure of logistics programs fromcourse content to the level of the degree offered is determined by the types ofopportunities offered in the marketplace. A similar argument by Keolanui and Wood(1998) is that transportation course offerings at both the undergraduate and graduatelevels are rather insignificant at most US universities because there is apparently nodemand by the transportation industry for students whose major field is transportation.

According to Lancioni et al. (2001b), some barriers encountered in the developmentand planning of logistics course and programs include, but are not limited to, a lack oftrained faculty to teach logistics; difficulty in integrating a logistics major in the currentcurriculum; general lack of student interest in logistics/SCM as a major; resistance offaculty 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 theschool such as marketing, operations management, finance, accounting, management,economics, and statistics; and general lack of fit of logistics/SCM into the overallcurriculum core of the undergraduate and graduate programs.

Some research indicates that different views on logistics skills and education are likelyto 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 beconfronted by a variety of customer requirements overlaid with a diversity of cultural andlinguistic differences (Walton et al., 1998). Such varied requirements may require a tailoredlogistics program that fits the local demand. In North America, an inter-countrycomparison of US and Canada by Ruppenthal (1998) shows that Canadian transportationeducation contrasts markedly with that in the USA, and until recently the US Departmentof Transportation has done little to encourage transportation education in the USA.

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Poist et al. (2001) finds highly dissimilar views regarding changes from 1992 to 1998in skill requirements between US and European respondents. In essence, USrespondents appear more likely to seek managers with broader-based skills and thosecapable of being both a management generalist and a management specialist. Similarly,Wu (2006) examines the key logistics-related skills required at the basic, managerial, andbusiness levels in Taiwan from the licensing certification perspective. Wu’s study findsthat the mid-level logisticians are highly expected to be equipped with more key logisticsskills than those at the basic and business levels. The research findings also show thatthe logisticians at the managerial level play a very critical role in the logistics industry.This suggests that the mid-level logisticians should have more formalcoursework/training in all logistics areas. In addition, we can see an increase in theimportance 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) onthe skill requirements of senior-level logisticians reveals that Singapore logisticiansview all the three categories of skills, involving business/logistics/managementknowledge and skills, are equally important, whereas to their Malaysian counterpartsthe importance of managerial skills/knowledge outweighs those of the other twocategories. In addition, logisticians in the two nations hold significantly different viewson some skill requirements, suggesting the factor of geographic area should be takeninto account in curriculum analysis.

A survey conducted by Gilmour (1988) back in the 1980s found logistics managersin the Asia Pacific region were more narrow-minded and less well educated than theirUS counterparts. This tends to suggest that there have been major changes during thelast decade, as logisticians in the Asia Pacific region seem to be fast catching up withtheir North American counterparts. It might be interesting to see if this picture remainsunchanged in terms of logistics curriculum given both the differences in geographiccharacteristics and levels of economic development.

All of the studies discussed so far above have been conducted only to deal with anarrower issue or a smaller region. No studies have been undertaken to providean 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 ofglobalization and the importance of logistics education in shaping a competentlogistician.

Research methodData collectionIn order to develop a comprehensive list of logistics/SCM curricula, the research isdivided into two phases to:

(1) identify the logistics/SCM programs/institutions that offer logistics/SCMprograms at different degree levels among different geographic regions; and

(2) collect and analyze the logistics/SCM courses offered by universities identifiedin Step 1.

The curriculum analysis of this study is based on logistics-related courses includingmandatory and elective courses. To focus on the core logistics courses, courses whichhave little to do with logistics are excluded from our later analysis (e.g. generaleducation, 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 dataavailability, updating frequency, and languages used on the web site. For instance, thoughsome academic departments/institutions in non-English speaking countries also provideinformation about their logistics program in English they fail to give details on thecurriculum. As a result, our analysis is mainly based on curriculum data from departmentweb sites written in English. During the data search period, unsurprisingly, detailedlogistics curriculum information was usually found on web sites in English-speakingnations. However, detailed logistics curriculum data can still be obtained fromnon-English-speaking logistics departments which accept foreign student admission andare eager to gain connections with the outside world. Nevertheless, despite this inherentlimitation 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 offactual 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 identifyingrelevant 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 mostcomprehensive single source to identify colleges and universities that offerlogistics-related courses and contains a listing of 224 academic institutions aroundthe world. More than 50 percent of the listed schools (123 schools) are located inthe USA while the rest (101) on the list are grouped by country and listed in thealphabetical 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 helpbalance the geographic representation, the following complementary measures aretaken 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 (US’s Best Graduate Schools) 2004 Edition, US News & WorldReport (US’s Best Colleges) 2004 Edition. In spite of some considerablecontroversy, the annual college/department rankings conducted by US News &World Report are heavily relied upon by both prospective students andacademic community (Vojak et al., 2003).

(3) Leading logistics journals. Journal of Business Logistics, International Journal ofPhysical Distribution & Logistics Management, International Journal of LogisticsManagement, and Supply Chain Management: An International Journal. One ofmajor objectives for a leading journal is to attract its share of publishablearticles from all constituencies of the intended academic community, in ourcase, logistics (Vojak et al., 2003). As identified in a comprehensive survey of47 logistics publications by Gibson and Hanna (2003), the four leading academicjournals used in this study are rated as important journals with a focus onlogistics. Authors who published their work in these leading journals during1997-2003 are more likely to have a close ties with the logistics community

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and pay careful attention to recent developments in logistics education andindustry needs.

(4) Europe. The attendance list of academic participants in a major annualEuropean logistics conference (10th International Symposium on Logistics) heldin July 2005, Portugal, is of great use in identifying logistics programs offeredaround the world especially in Europe.

(5) Asia. A research report by Wu (2004) contains a great deal of logisticsinformation from 14 nations. In addition, the paper also collects data fromTaiwan’s Ministry of Education (including the Academy Evaluation Committee,Department of Higher Education). As for China, logistics college data come fromthree 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 theeighth annual survey of logistics academic career opportunities (Cooper andSantosa, 2004). The intention of this survey is to get a general idea regarding thesupply of and demand for PhD graduates in logistics. As of June 9, 2004,50 departments’ projected openings are listed in the survey.

Data analysisAfter removing duplicates and inaccessible units, a total of 217 academic units areobtained for later screening.

Identification of logistics-related programs. The second phase of the study is to selectthe appropriate departments/programs under study. In consideration of the core focuson logistics/SCM, the samples of this study must be much associated withlogistics/SCM rather than having a core concentration on other academic fields such asmarketing or transportation. A management or transportation department mayprovide several courses associated with logistics, but unlike a logistics department thebusiness/transportation department certainly is unlikely to put as much effort intosuch 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 departmentwhich does not emphasize logistics as its major is excluded from our analysis. Forinstance, programs/departments solely named as marketing or transportation areremoved from later analysis. To become a candidate for further study, at least part of adepartment’s name must contain the words “logistics” or “supply chain”. Anassumption behind using this stringent criterion is that the department name is highlylikely to reflect the curriculum design for the department of interest. On top of thedepartment name requirement, the department web sites with no or inadequate coursedata are also eliminated from the list, resulting in a final list of 77 universities and96 departments for later analysis. The data collection effort continued until September31, 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 involvesdata 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 ofcomparison.

ResultsRegional analysisAs shown in Table I, logistics education in the North America, and in particular in theUSA, 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) inlogistics. These numbers indicate that logistics education in Asia is receiving growingattention and much work in developing logistics curriculum is under work. Forinstance, Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, a renowned academicinstitution both in Asia and in the world, has recently changed the department namefrom the Department of Industrial Engineering to the Department of IndustrialEngineering and Logistics Management, to reflect its current course content to betterposition itself in the logistics field.

The results also surprising and interesting, as the second place is obtained by theAsian region rather than Europe, which has a closer historical tie with theNorth America and also a language advantage. Since, the analysis is mainly based onthe web data written in English, it was naturally expected by us that the westernnations should acquire the top spots in the ranking. Instead, as presented earlier, Asiatakes the second place in the ranking, ahead of Europe and Australia. Our analysisshows that nations in Asia were willing to invest resources in developing their websites in English, and are more aggressive at exposing themselves to the outside worldthan their European and Australian counterparts. In today’s internet era, such aproactive approach certainly demonstrates their intension to outreach and strengthenstheir efforts to attract more international students who are interested in pursuingdegrees in logistics/SCM at their institutions.

As mentioned earlier, the course data of the study are extracted from the web siteswritten in English. Despite over 100 logistics institutions being located in Europe,our findings show that very few pay attention to providing information about theircourse curriculum online for the international community. This inaccessibility mayimpede academic exchange with foreign logistics students and educators, and thus thelong-term development of logistics education in that department. Conversely, theAsian region is gaining increasing attention around the world and now invests a greatdeal of resources into establishing the logistics infrastructures and promoting logisticseducation. The logistics development in this region, except for Japan, relatively lagsbehind its western counterparts. The number of colleges/universities offering academic

Region Schools no. Percentage Programs no. Percentage

North America 46 60 64 66.7Europe (UK) 4 5 4 4.2NZ and Australia 9 12 9 9.3Asia 18 23 19 19.8Total 77 100 96 100

Table I.Logistics programsdistribution amongdifferent regions

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degrees in logistics is expanding at an amazing speed. The educational authorities insome non-English countries, like Taiwan’s Ministry of Education, also require alluniversities to provide detailed course descriptions/syllabi posted on the web site. Eachacademic program in Taiwan is encouraged to provide an English version to theoutside world in order to promote the concept of globalization and keep theinternational community informed.

Country analysis. The study performs a country analysis for the largest nation ineach of the three regions (Asia, the North America, Europe) in terms of logisticsuniversities included in the study. The following section provides a brief courseanalysis 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 thecourse. Hence, although the courses are categories arbitrarily by the authors, no systematicor significant grouping bias or mistakes are perceived to exist. Another classificationprinciple 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 thecurrent trends of logistics curriculum in the US universities, which are presented inTable II. The top four logistics/SCM course areas above 10 percent in the USA arelogistics (29 percent), others (14 percent), information technology (12 percent), andoperations management (11 percent).

Like other departments around the world, it is very common that a logisticsdepartment offers “Others” courses (also called “General Education”) either to helplogistics students enrich themselves toward a professional career path or to broadentheir future career opportunities into other fields. The “Others” area consists of a widevariety of courses (e.g. seminar, strategy, internship, negotiation, laws, ethics, andcontracting) and is ranked in the second place, the two most popular courses are seminarand strategy, accounting for one third of the course composition each, as shown inTable II. Supply chain and logistics are the two main subjects discussed in this area.

Rank Percentage

Course areaLogistics 1 29Others 2 14IT 3 12Operations management 4 11Transportation 5 9Marketing 6 7Management 7 6Statistics 7 6Finance 9 3Warehousing 9 3OthersSeminar 1 35Strategy 2 31Internship 3 11Negotiation 4 9Law 5 6Ethics 6 5Contracting 7 3

Table II.Logistics curriculum in

the USA

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A few courses are devoted to transportation systems and purchasing, while corporatestrategies center around the discussion of how a firm makes use of management andIT and how to respond to environmental changes. In comparison with other nations, asshown in Tables II-IV, the USA certainly gives a lot of attention to seminars. Informationtechnology, e-commerce, and management information technology are also importantcourse subjects. According to van Hoek (1998), there will be a pressing need to create

Rank Percentage

Course areaLogistics 1 26Transportation 2 15Operations management 3 10Statistics 4 9Others 4 9Management 6 8IT 6 8Marketing 8 7Finance 9 6Warehousing 10 2OthersStrategy 1 31Law 2 28Internship 3 14Seminar 4 13Ethics 4 13Negotiation 6 1Contracting 7 0

Table III.Logistics curriculumin UK

Rank Percentage

Course areaLogistics 1 27Others 2 15Finance 3 12IT 4 10Transportation 5 8Management 5 8Statistics 7 7Operation management 8 5Marketing 9 4Warehousing 9 4OthersStrategy 1 27Seminar 2 16Ethics 3 14Law 4 12Contracting 5 11Negotiation 5 11Internship 7 9

Table IV.Logistics curriculum inChina (including HK)

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information systems that can function in multiple currencies and languages andsimultaneously communicate inventory, track shipments and provide other data amongdifferent regions. In the context of global operations, international supply chainmanagers 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 theirknowledge of the field. In comparison, the top five courses chosen by logistics executivesin the 2003 career survey of OSU (La Londe and Ginter, 2003) who were returning toschool for a period of 90 days were as follows: IT; supply chain integration; customerservice/value; CPFR, and logistics functional integration in order of preference. Thisphenomenon indicates that most logistics departments in all regions are not onlydevoted to enhancing their core courses, but also try to broaden students’ professionalhorizons to get them connected with international logistics issues.

UK. In the UK, the development of logistics education has been occasioned by agrowing awareness of the major cost savings possible and the increased potentialavailable through a re-appraisal of the corporate distribution system, realizationswhich have created a need for distribution planning education (Cowell, 1998). Fouruniversities in the UK are selected in total so as to understand the current trends oflogistics 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 logisticscourses, it is found that the logistics curricula in the UK also place an emphasis ontransportation and analysis tools. Overall, quantitative analysis skills are a must for alogistics major in the UK. The UK is committed to integrated logistics planning(Hernan, 2003), and its logistics curriculum places more emphasis on basic logisticscourses. The course area ranked in the second place is transportation, which accountsfor 20 percent.

Compared to the USA and China, it is more common that the logistics-relatedprograms/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 thatthe UK has to rely on imports and exports, and most faculty members associated withlogistics are educators engaged in I/E business, logistics, communication andmanagement, due to the UK’s geographic limitations and market size. Hence, in additionto the core courses of logistics, transportation courses are also taught in logisticsdepartments. According to Christopher (1995) and Poist et al. (2001), for the logisticsfunction, there seems to be many benefits to a European-wide strategic orientation, withthe anticipation of more efficient transportation networks. Emphasis on transportationin logistics-related programs is also similar to the situation in Taiwan. In terms ofeducational development for logistics, the current focus on transportation is of particularinterest because transportation in the UK has never become a subject for advancedgraduate study in universities, and neither, for that matter, was marketing until themid-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 theindustrial/engineering college, manufacturing-related courses in existing logistics

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departments may account for a certain percentage. Nevertheless, the logistics area stilloccupies the largest share of 27 percent.

The shortage of capable logisticians in China is due mainly to the long-standingproblems with the education/training system in that country. Unlike other Asiancountries like Singapore, Taiwan, and Korea, where workers are generally highlyqualified and well educated, in a typical Chinese firm, when a worker is at a lowerposition level he is highly likely to be poorly educated. This is especially true in thecase of the logistics industry in China. To promote the importance of logistics, anofficial logistics certificate issuance system (National Certification Standards:Logisticians) was established by the China Ministry of Labour & Social Security in2003 (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 domesticand foreign companies due to an insufficient number of training coaches and educatorsin logistics, and there are only a small number of universities that are capable ofcultivating logistics students. Two logistics course areas are noteworthy incomparison with the USA and the UK: finance and transportation. The finance areain particular is emphasized in China. The transportation area receives much lowerpriority, while in the western region transportation is deemed critical and essential inlogistics education. Possible explanations for this arrangement are China’s recentaggressive economic promotion and investment and its national centralized policy, aswell as local protectionism in transportation and communication. Similar to otherThird World countries (Dadzie, 1998), many physical distribution activities arestrongly controlled or actually performed by state agencies in China. Logisticseducators in China are not necessarily highly educated in the logistics field, and hencevery few high-quality graduate programs are offered to the public (Ho and Lee, 2002).

Course analysisThe findings of Lancioni et al. (2001b) indicate there is a strong relationship betweenthe schools offering both graduate and undergraduate degrees in logistics and theirability to provide counseling and job placement services for their students, in that thelarger schools in the USA have the resource base and the reputation of their logisticsprograms to attract a large number of firms to hire their graduates.

The undergraduate level. It is important to know, from the global perspective, whatkey logistics-related courses are viewed as required by educators. Only those web sitesthat supply detailed course information on mandatory and elective courses at theundergraduate level are selected as inputs into the course analysis. For this, the samplesize is reduced from 77 universities to a total of 44 universities, 22 in the USA, four inthe 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 andTransportation,” each subject is counted once (one time for logistics management andone time for transportation management) to simplify the counting process.

Table V tabulates the frequency distribution for mandatory and elective coursesoffered in logistics at the undergraduate level. The top three compulsory courses inlogistics are logistics management, transportation management, and supply chainmanagement, indicating that logistics management is the one subject that is given themost attention in logistics-related departments. The top three elective courses arelogistics management, seminar, and supply chain management, indicating that in

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elective courses, the emphasis is also placed on logistics management while thelogistics education community tends to use the seminar course as a supplementaryteaching channel to address a variety of contemporary logistics issues due it itsflexibility advantage. Courses with an impact on a firm’s bottom line are alsohighlighted, such as economics, accounting/financing, and purchasing. As early as inthe 1970s, the advent and perceived importance of information systems in logisticsprompted logistics managers to have sound knowledge in the field (Leenders andFearon, 1992). The 1990s started offering new opportunities to the industry through anarray of new and high-information technology (Razzaque and Sirat, 2001). All thesechanges have made contemporary logistics highly complex and challenging, andredefined the roles and scope of logistics managers. The senior logistics executives oftoday and the future are more likely to have strong academic training in logistics withan emphasis on computer, technical and general management skills (Buxbaum, 1995).To have efficient smooth logistics/SCM operations, the importance of informationtechnology in all logistics-related activities such as transprortation/disbribution,inventory control, data processing and optimization, ERP, CRM, productionscheduling, and materials management cannot be overemphasized. Efficient logisticsand smooth supply chain management will not be possible without sufficient ITsupport. Consequently, students are also expected to be armed with computing skills tocatch the today’s EC/internet wave. The integration of skills between IT and logisticsfor a logistics graduate is necessary to meet their future career challenges.

The graduate level. By the same token, this study removes all graduate programswith incomplete information or without compulsory and elective courses from ouranalysis, resulting in a total of 32 graduate schools (19 in the USA, four in the UK, three

Rank Frequency

Mandatory courseLogistics management 1 62Transportation management 2 33Supply chain management 3 30Economics 4 25Statistics 5 24Computer application 6 23Accounting/finance 7 21Seminar 8 20Purchasing management 9 16Management theory and practice 10 14Elective courseLogistics management 1 24Seminar 2 16Supply chain management 3 14Internet application 4 11Economics 4 11Transportation management 6 9Marketing management 6 9Internship 8 8Accounting/finance 9 6Statistics 9 6

Table V.Worldwide logistics

courses offered at theundergraduate level

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in Taiwan and six in Australia). As we can see from Table VI, the top three mandatorycourses offered at the graduate level globally are logistics management, supply chainmanagement, and seminar, among which logistics management is offered 34 times –the most popular topic, as anticipated. As for the elective courses, a similar designstrategy is also utilized at the graduate level. The top three elective courses are rankedby frequency as seminar, logistics management, and e-commerce, indicating that allthree are considered very critical for graduate course offerings. Based on pilot projectsat the University of Calgary in Canada, Grant (2001) describes and recommends the useof seminar or block formats in delivering logistics courses, which means designing anddelivering undergraduate business logistics and services marketing courses in a springsession as intensive, one-week seminar or block courses instead of the regular six-weekcourse format. The block format courses are often composed of a short-term, but withintensive seminar courses instead of the regular length course format. Grant suggeststhat the successful results of block courses may help differentiate an institution fromits competitors and give them a competitive advantage or niche with this uniquedelivery format.

Unlike those at the graduate level, it seems from the top ten undergraduate logisticscourses that some important subjects, such as materials/inventory control, operationsmanagement, distribution management, and international/global logistics, are missingalong the logistics course chain. The undergraduate level should not ignore theimportance of integration among key logistics issues. The department should shoulderthe responsibility for enhancing core logistics courses and have more professional

Rank Frequency

Mandatory courseLogistics management 1 34Supply chain management 2 28Seminar 3 19Operations management 4 12Purchasing management 5 10International logistic 6 8Transportation management 6 8Materials management 7 7Distribution system management 8 6Business logistics 8 6Simulation 10 5Elective courseSeminar 1 21Logistics management 2 14E-commerce 3 10Decision support and expert system 4 8Operations management 4 8Supply chain management 6 7Transportation management 7 6Production development 7 6Financial management 8 5Management information system 8 5Business negotiation 8 5

Table VI.Worldwide logisticscourses offered at thegraduate level

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course offerings to produce competent graduates that have the ability to solve realworld problems. It is no doubt that the student’s understanding of integratedlogistics/supply chain management will not be completed and thorough if the studentis 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 itpossible for them to understand the delicate relationship among the key stakeholdersalong the chain.

The importance of integration in logistics cannot be overemphasized. In ourtraditional thinking, due to the higher number of credit hours graduation requirementsand the longer period of learning, when compared to research-oriented graduatestudents course-oriented undergraduate students should have more opportunities tolearn every integral part of logistics/SCM in addition to the overall introductorycourses in logistics (e.g. logistics, SCM). Logisticians will find it difficult to maximizethe effectiveness and efficiency of SCM without a firm understanding of these criticalissues. Thus, the logistics curriculum offered at the graduate level is more likely toform a complete SCM from outside to inside, from upstream to downstream. Aspresented in Table VI, graduate students can learn almost every key area during theirrelatively 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 intospecific areas: logistics, transportation, warehousing, statistics, operationsmanagement, marketing, finance, information technology, management and others. Inaddition to the simple number count approach, this study also performs a weightedranking by factoring the credit hours into our calculation to reflect each course’s trueweight/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 ofcourses 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 Credit hours Percentage

1 Logistics 1,377 222 Others 912 153 Transportation 849 144 Information technology 756 125 Operations management 447 76 Management 435 76 Marketing 402 76 Statistics 393 69 Finance 375 6

10 Warehousing 183 3Total 6,129 100

Table VII.Course classification by

course area

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Logistics curriculum for developed and developing nations. The classifications intodeveloped or developing nations in our sample are based on the membership statuswith 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 developingnations, including China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, etc. contain 18 universities.

As presented in Table VIII, by a simple comparison, it is found that the top fivelogistics course areas for the developed group are logistics (28 percent), others(12 percent), IT (12 percent), transportation (11 percent), and OM (10 percent) while forthe developing group the transportation (20 percent) area is favored while OM(4 percent) is relatively neglected in comparison with the developed group. The mainreason for this situation is a result of the contribution made by a major member of thedeveloping group, Taiwan, where logistics programs in large part are traditionallyconsidered part of the transportation field. A clear trend in Table VIII also suggeststhat logistics curricula in the developing nations are not just mainly associatedwith transportation, but deal with the integrated issues in logistics. Statisticallyspeaking, the x 2 test shows that no significant difference is found between developedand developing nations in logistics/SCM curriculums.

Furthermore, this result is also consistent with the findings of Razzaque andSirat (2001) that transportation skills are highly desired in developing nations. Onthe contrary, in the western region, in the USA, today’s logistics education ismuch more associated with the business/management department and industrialengineering/management department, in that transportation alone can no longer coverthe various logistics needs and activities (CLM, 2004). It should be noted that since

Rank Course area Percentage

Developed nations1 Logistics 282 Others 122 Transportation 124 Operations management 115 IT 106 Marketing 76 Management 78 Statistics 69 Finance 4

10 Warehousing 3Developing nations

1 Transportation 202 Logistics 183 Others 164 IT 145 Management 86 Finance 66 Statistics 68 Marketing 59 Operations management 4

10 Warehousing 3

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

Table VIII.Comparison of logisticscurriculum (developednations vs developingnations)

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US universities account for 60 percent of the surveyed ones in developed nations, theresult may have a bias towards US logistics universities.

In addition to the core concentration on logistics in the others area, logistics-relateddepartments in developed nations focus on the case study approach and corporatestrategy. Courses regarding management, global strategy management, humanresources management, organization theory and technology management are oftenoffered, which have developed from traditional logistics functions such as distribution,warehousing, inventory into integrated 3PL activities, and from the move toglobalization, which stresses seamless collaboration with major supply chain partnersaround the world. Thus, many management-related courses are offered to students tomeet such needs. As for the developing group, the others area is mainly dominated bysuch courses as logistics case study topics and courses which focus on law, forinstance, business law. According to Gammelgaard and Larson (2001), throughdevelopment of context-bases cases, logistics educators can enhance the analytic andintuitive abilities of students. There is no doubt that most of state-of-the-art logisticsconcepts 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 behindin terms of fundamental management of logistics, while their transportation networkinfrastructure systems is also inadequate (Table VIII).

Logistics curriculum for island nations and continental nations. According to thedefinitions of the UN sea law, any land area that is surrounded by waters from fourdirections, is above the water surface in case of high tides, and came into beingnaturally is an island nation, while others are continental nations. Based on this UNgeographical definition, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the UK, and New Zealand are groupedinto the island nations (117 universities) while the USA, China, Australia, and Canadabelong to the continental group, with 61 universities analyzed.

In Table IX, course offerings in continental nations show that major subjects suchas logistics, information technology, and operations management are ranked importantlogistics areas. Most of the logistics departments in these nations were originallyaffiliated with manufacturing, logistics and supply chain, while the courses offered bydepartments in island nations show that transportation, logistics, and informationtechnology are ranked in the first three places. Firstly, island nations are generallysmaller than continental nations in terms of geographic size and have to rely on seaand air transportation in addition to inland cargo transportation, so it is necessary toemphasize sufficient knowledge of transportation and logistics in the course design.Secondly, most of the logistics departments are originally affiliated withtransportation-related departments, resulting in a focus on transportation courses.Nevertheless, the one thing that remains essential for both groups is an emphasis onIT, and this arrangement reflects the critical role IT plays in today’scommunication-intensive logistics activities. Despite a slight difference in theranking between the two groups, the top ten logistics courses taught are exactlythe same. Again there is no significant difference between the continental group andthe island group in the top ten list.

Academic background of US logistics faculty. Rutner et al. (1996) point out that one ofthe barriers to the development of logistics programs caused by the lack of resources isassociated 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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and university resources, the barriers limiting the integration and practice of logisticseducation in colleges and universities are grouped into three subjects: computerhardware, computer software, and educational resources.

Vojak et al. (2003) perform statistical analyses of 13 years of the US News & WorldReport graduate program “reputation” rankings for engineering colleges and theirconstitutive departments and find that college rank is much more closely related todepartment rank for some disciplines (e.g. mechanical engineering and electricalengineering) than others (e.g. industrial engineering and bioengineering). There is nodoubt that a strong faculty team is a must for a successful academic program, and it isgood to see that colleges offering logistics/SCM programs generally have goodacademic reputations (US News, 2004b).

Based on the accessible data about faculties’ academic background, 384 educatorsare identified in our collected logistics programs, of which, 256 educators giveinformation on the academic institutions where they received their doctoral degrees.However, only 195 faculty members provided their academic fields during their PhDstudy on their web sites. The study finds that 183 logistics educators graduated fromone of the top 100 US universities (US News, 2004a), accounting for 71 percent of thepopulation. In addition, 96 percent of the top 25 US universities in the 2003 rankings oflogistics/SCM are placed among top 100 universities in the USA, except for the ArizonaState University-Main Campus (Carey), which is ranked 128th. It is impressive that60 percent of universities offering logistics program are listed among the top 30,indicating most of the US logistics programs are generally offered by universities withstrong academic reputations.

Rank Course area Percentage

Continental nations1 Logistics 282 Others 153 IT 124 Operations management 115 Transportation 96 Marketing 77 Management 68 Statistics 59 Finance 4

10 Warehousing 3Island nations

1 Transportation 222 Logistics 183 Others 144 IT 125 Management 96 Statistics 87 Finance 78 Marketing 48 Operations management 4

10 Warehousing 2

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

Table IX.Comparison of logisticscurriculum (continentalnations vs island nations)

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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 beviewed with caution. For instance, the logistics program at Ohio State University istitled Marketing and Logistics, with a clear focus on marketing as well. For graduatestudy at master and doctoral level, the importance of the marketing and logistics areasare heavily stressed. We also find that faculty with strong background in these twoareas are most sought after by these department. As a result, it is expected that thepercentage 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 logisticseducation in the USA. In addition, this marketing preference will have a major impacton the direction of the logistics curriculum in a department. This situation also reflectsthe current shortage of logistics faculty.

Research interests of US logistics faculty. The findings of Lancioni et al. (2001b) showthat the research output of the logistics faculty at universities offering degrees at bothgraduate and undergraduate levels tends to be extensive and varied. Since, the current

US logistics facultyRank Academic background No Percentage

1 Marketing 38 19.492 Business administration 26 13.333 IE 25 12.824 Logistics 21 10.775 Management information system 11 5.646 Transportation 9 4.627 Economics 8 4.108 Supply chain 8 4.109 Information system 8 4.10

10 Engineering 6 3.0811 Decision sciences 4 2.0512 Statistics 4 2.0513 Technology management 3 1.5414 Finance 2 1.0315 Society 2 1.0316 Accounting 2 1.0317 Purchasing 2 1.0318 Communication 2 1.0319 Production management 2 1.0320 Civil engineering 1 0.5121 Aeronautics 1 0.5122 Law 1 0.5123 Mechanical engineering 1 0.5124 Manufacturing 1 0.5125 Industrial organization psychology 1 0.5126 Instruction system technology 1 0.5127 International business 1 0.5128 Public policy 1 0.5129 Mathematics 1 0.5130 Chemistry 1 0.5131 Distribution 1 0.51

Total 195

Table X.Academic background of

us logistics faculty

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supply of logistics educators can hardly meet the growing diverse demand, and it is notrare that a faculty may shift their research interests to another field(s) and/or pursueother research areas after graduation. It is worth understanding the research areas thecurrent logistics professors are exploring. Through breaking down the facultybackground and faculty research interests, we can obtain a broader picture ofa department’s curriculum design and its future direction. As mentioned earlier, thedepartment can also examine its curriculum structure to see if its logistics curriculumis tilted toward a direction away from logistics, and this can serve as a reference forfaculty recruiting considerations.

The generalization of the research area analysis must also be viewed with caution, inthat many web sites under study have no data about faculty research interests availableto the public. The sample for this analysis consists of 350 logistics educators in 26 USuniversities. This analysis can provide a rough idea about the expertise areas of thelogistics educators in the USA. All research areas are roughly grouped into 11 majorareas, as presented in Table XI. Research interests data are totally based on inputs on thefaculty web sites, while classification of numerous specific research topics into the11 broad research areas is subject to the author’s personal judgment. For instance, for aprofessor who has interest in pursuing areas in e-learning, web-enabled databases, andknowledge management, the first two items are grouped into the IT area and each item iscounted once while the last item is classified into the management area. During the datacollection process it is found that a number of logistics educators list more than fourresearch areas, indicating their broad research interests and flexibility.

An important finding from this study, based on the author’s observation, is that mostof the logistics professors are not limited to their past academic training. The authorsfind that a large number of logistics educators now pursue logistics-related researchtopics which are greatly different from the research areas/topics they worked on in thepast. Being willing to be flexible in research and teaching shows a positive sign inlogistics education, as contemporary logistics education certainly requires educatorswith a flexible and adaptive mind to meet today’s evolving challenges. Although itmakes perfect sense that junior educators are highly likely to embark on their academiccareer based on their past doctoral training, a well-positioned logistics curriculum in thedepartment they serve will motivate these junior educators to engage inresearch/teaching in logistics fields to which they may not have been much exposedto in the past. Instead, they are more willing to take on other research challenges toward

US logistics facultyRank Research areas No Percentage

1 Logistics 139 212 IT 116 173 Marketing 105 164 IE 97 145 Transportation 65 106 Management 60 97 Statistics 49 78 Economics 24 49 Finance 12 2

10 Laws 5 1

Table XI.Research areas of uslogistics faculty

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other areas after graduation, no matter whether such changes in research areas arevoluntary or reluctant. For instance, according to Keolanui and Wood (1998),transportation teachers are not much in demand, and doctoral students in transportationoften 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 anarticle by Ruppenthal (1998), a situation in contrast to a very positive view ontransportation education in Canada.

Regarding the most popular research areas for US logistics educators, Logistics, asexpected, is in the first place, followed by IT, marketing, IE, and transportation rankedfrom second to fifth, respectively, (Table XI) despite the fact that there are only 29logistics educators with a logistics/SCM PhD degree (Table X).

ConclusionsOwing to the increasing popularity of logistics as a major and the demand for logisticsprofessionals in industry, demand for logistics graduates expands each year. The roleof a university is to provide students with the education they need to be successful inlife. A career in logistics and supply chain management is one that all schools shouldbe able to provide for their graduates (Lancioni et al., 2001b).

This study provides the first empirical analysis of logistics course offeredworldwide and describes the overall picture of logistics curriculum from differentperspectives. Consistent with previous literature (Lancioni et al., 2001a), anotherresearch finding based on the authors’ observation during the data collectionprocess but not shown in the tables provided is that the course portfolio of theselogistics programs varies from school to school with some as separate academicdepartments, whereas other programs are associated with existing academic programssuch as marketing, transportation, and operation management.

To address the research questions, this study has the following findings. Thesefindings generally are consistent with several previous studies that offer insightsregarding the skill requirements for logistics professionals. First, the logistics coursedesign for undergraduate students tends to be function-oriented. One of the surprisingoutcomes of the research is that a critical internal logistics activity, productionoperations/management, is not listed among the top ten mandatory and elective courses.Lack of knowledge about internal operation management will hinder efforts to make thesupply chain complete and efficient. Compared with the undergraduate courses,the graduate logistics courses are more integrated and well designed, despite the lessercredit hours requirement. Also, seminars are heavily utilized into the logistics curriculumat the graduate level to address contemporary logistics issues. For example, scenariosfor research currently being written at Bradford Center very much around the need foraction-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 asseminars, strategy, internship, negotiation, and so on. A simple country comparisonis 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, thoughthese have not been statistically tested. In addition to logistics and others as the top twoareas, China puts Finance in the third place while IT is considered the next importantcourse to teach in the USA. In the UK, transportation and operations management areviewed as more important than others and IT.

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Second, a difference in logistics courses between developed nations and developingnations is how they view the role of transportation in their logistics curriculum.Overall, transportation is given the most attention in developing nations partly becauselogistics education generally originated from the transportation departments and therelatively inadequate transportation infrastructures in these nations. Third, the islandnations also pay much more attention to transportation-related skills. Their differentemphasis in logistics education may be partly explained by their economic status andneed for growth. For the developing group, to support its economic development,fundamental transportation infrastructure is in particularly urgent demand and stillat the growth stage, so transportation issues are an important subject for students tolearn. 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 moreefficiently rather than viewing transportation as the top one priority to deal with.

Another difference in course arrangement between the continental group and theisland group is in the operations management area. For the continental group,operations management is ranked in the fourth place, suggesting a great deal ofattention is given to the production/manufacturing activity, while it receives muchlower priority in the island group, ranked only 9th. Since, OM is much associated withthe field of industrial engineering, a possible reason for this disparity is that thecontinental nations, overall speaking, have much more manufacturing activities,resources and needs than the island nations. Again, in addition to the core logisticsconcentration, information technology-related courses are heavily integrated intologistics education to meet today’s 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 fourfields: marketing (19.49 percent), management (13.33 percent), IE (12.82 percent), andlogistics (10.77 percent), ranked in the order of percentage. Of the top 25 logistics/SCMprograms ranked by the US News & World Report, all but one are also ranked amongthe top 100 universities. This evidence indicates that schools offering excellent logisticsprograms are also positively associated with their overall academic reputations.Obviously, the strong positive relationship between department rank and college rankexists 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 researchinterests other than their academic training during their doctoral study, and thus aremore willing to explore other research areas after graduation. Logistics, IT, andmarketing are the top three research areas chosen by the logistics educators.

In conclusion, there are a number of essential skills a competent logistician needs topossess to meet requirements of industry (Langley and Mundy, 1978). As logisticseducation is dynamic and ever changing, a truly integrated and effective logisticsprogram can help students to keep pace with the business world and be equipped withthe skills industry desires, resulting in more successful job placements and asignificant reduction in training costs by industry.

Research limitations and future research directionsAlthough the authors make every effort to be comprehensive in data gathering, thestudy does suffer some limitations. First, the analyses conducted in the study are

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strictly descriptive and subject to the universities surveyed and the data provided bythe universities. The major limitation of the study is the existence of relatively fewlogistics programs with complete information on their web sites, despite the largenumber of logistics programs initially identified. Therefore, the results of the presentstudy should be taken with caution and considered exploratory. Second, languagebarriers pose a serious problem in data collection for logistics programs that do nothave course information in English available on their web sites. Examples are Franceand Spain in Europe, and Japan, South Korea and Thailand in Asia. Third, apart fromthe limitations common to any research involving sampling, the study might havesome additional limitations. It is not difficult to appreciate that each nation sets up itsown educational standards for higher education. Moreover, what should be taught inboth undergraduate and post-graduate levels is not a subject of clear agreementin logistics. Finally, the results may not entirely and accurately reflect the logisticscurriculum offered in a region or worldwide. Also, even though courses may share thesame name, they may have dramatically different teaching focus and course contents.Nevertheless, a well-orchestrated logistics curriculum planning must be based on afirm grasp of the current trends in logistics. Despite the above-mentioned limitations,our simple but important findings provide logistics educators with an overall factualpicture 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 canhave a pretty good idea about what kinds of professional knowledge and skills thelogistics students have received at school, whether such skills are sufficient enough tothe industry and, if not, what additional training needs to be given to the students.Information on these issues can have direct managerial implications on logisticshuman resource management, hiring policy, and training program. Our results mayhelp logisticians to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses, making improvementswhere needed. Since, the results identify which courses/skills are taught in school,employers may use them as guidelines in recruiting new logistics personnel ordesigning future training courses. This research also enables logistics educators inother countries to compare their logistics curriculum with those discussed in the study.Logistics educators should also integrate the findings of the study in their logisticscourse 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 preparationexpected during their undergraduate or graduate study. To work overseas, afterself-examination of strengths and weaknesses, students can be prepared to competewith the local students in the region where they intend to work.

Future directions for the research may conduct a more detailed content analysis on thedata or perform statistical analyses to test some relevant research hypotheses. Anotherdirection would be to replicate this study at a future date to see if logistics curricula changequickly over time. Such information is important to help logistics educators understand ifwhat they teach in the classroom keeps abreast of industry demands.

References

Alvarstein, V. and Johannesen, K.K. (2001), “Problem-based learning approach in teaching lowerlevel logistics and transportation”, International Journal of Physical Distribution &Logistics Management, Vol. 31 Nos 7/8, pp. 557-73.

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BTU (2003), 2003 China Logistics Development Bluebook, Beijing Technological University,Beijing.

Buxbaum, P.A. (1995), “The next generation of logistics managers: fearless communicators”,Transportation & Distribution, Vol. 36 No. 10, pp. 84-5.

Christopher, H. (1995), “Trans-European networks”, Report of the Personal Representatives ofthe Heads of State of Government, Brussels-Luxembourg ECIS for Your Files No. 12.

Christopher, M., Magrill, L. and Wills, G. (1998), “Educational development for marketinglogistics”, International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, Vol. 28No. 4, pp. 234-41.

CLM (2004), CLM Definition of Logistics Management, Council of Logistics Management,Fort Lee, VA.

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About the authorYen-Chun Jim Wu is an Associate Professor of the Department of Logistics Management atNational Kaohsiung First University of Science and Technology, Taiwan. His papers haveappeared 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 andTechnology, International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, InternationalJournal of Logistics Management, European Journal of Operational Research, TransportationResearch Part A, International Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, and Journalof Enterprise Information Management. His research interests include supply chainmanagement, technology management, and lean manufacturing. He holds a PhD inIndustrial 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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