WHAT DRIVES THE SUCCESS OF SUPPLY CHAIN RISK MANAGEMENT: CASE STUDY OF CARGO TRANSPORTATION COMPANIES IN TURKEY

Abstract

Historically, risk management in the supply chain has been an accomplished practice. Over the last two decades, Turkish cargo transportation firms have successfully adopted the required mechanisms to maintain logistics operations. Turkey, with its professional approach, has achieved remarkable success in cargo transportation towards dealing with risk factors involved. In this study it has been tried to explore the success areas that constitute risk management in supply chain taking cargo transportation in Turkey as the case study. For this purpose, questions were unfolded on the principal risk factors on supply chain risk management, the principal actions and mechanisms for supply chain risk management and the most suitable methods for attaining a flexible supply chain. In this research a pragmatic philosophy was adopted for methods and techniques of data collection. The research is based on multi sources of data collection that include both sources of data collection, known as primary and secondary data sources. The first part of the questionnaire used in this research includes closed ended questions consisting of answers about demographic and general information. The second part of the questionnaire includes close ended questions provided with five-point Likert type scale about questions to learn the responses of the supply chain managers related to the services on cargo transportation provided in Turkey and to measure their satisfaction level. The population of the research is the managers and employees on cargo transportation sector in Turkey. In this research it has been investigated whether there is a positive relationship between risk exposure, competitive differentiation, environmental risk and legal requirements with supply chain risk management. The data collected from the sample of the research and analysis on the data has shown that the cargo transportation companies in Turkey have an effective risk management on supply chain. Respondents seem to be satisfied with their company's supply chain risk management owing to their senior management's being sufficiently responsible on the subject. The findings of the research reveals that in cargo transportation sector, exposure to risk factors affects the success of supply chain management, and to be able to effectively deal with these risk factors, companies pay attention to develope the capacity of their managers to comply with competitive factors.