The effect of logistics performance determinants on export performance

Abstract

From the mid-1980s, Morocco confirmed its choice to liberalize trade so that international trade could become a lever for development. However, despite these ambitions, the persistence of the trade deficit has led us to reflect on the challenges of exports and the factors that can trigger the emergence of new competition. At this level, logistics has become one of the key factors to circumvent the obstacles that affect the supply of Moroccan exports. This paper aims to study and assess the impact of the determinants of logistics performance on export performance in the Moroccan context. It follows that the general concepts will be defined, and a review of the literature on the importance of the determinants of logistics performance in exporting companies will be presented, as well as the theoretical and practical research work that has studied the impact of determinants of logistics performance on export performance. The data were collected from the logistics directors and managers of 90 Moroccan exporting companies and later were analyzed by using the structural equation modelling technique to test the hypotheses and validate the research model. The results of our empirical study showed that the three determinants of logistics performance (collaboration, information sharing and logistics strategy) positively affect the export performance of Moroccan firms, also, we have distinguished that the three determinants play a very important role in improving the company's activities and strengthening the relationship between suppliers and customers, and finally, we found that all hypotheses of our study are validated. Our study has shown that there are certain determinants of logistics performance (collaboration, information sharing and logistics strategy) that contribute to the improvement of export performance in companies. In addition, we will verify our conceptual model in other countries which would allow us to identify universal trends and we have distinguished that there are other determinants and other important variables that will be integrated in our future research model.