Case
Abstract
The growth of third-party logistics in the past three decades coincides with the unprecedented globalization of supply chains. When firms conduct international business, they often collaborate with third-party logistics providers in foreign markets to reduce the risks of investing in logistics assets. We found that as an emerging value-added service, third-party purchasing has been offered by third-party logistics providers more frequently than before. In this case study, based on the interests in third-party purchasing, we provide an insight into the research method we used to explore the relationship between asset specificity, uncertainty, frequency, transaction size, and third-party purchasing services provided by third-party purchasing providers as the value-added service, and how this service affects their providers and users.