Barriers to Applying Last-Mile Logistics in the Egyptian Market: An Extension of the Technology Acceptance Model

Abstract

Drawing on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), this research aims to investigate the impact of social, environmental, and technological barriers on adopting the last-mile logistics application. This research used a self-administrative questionnaire to collect 1060 respondents from the Egyptian market and analysed it using partial least square structural equation modeling. The findings revealed that some elements could obstruct the implementation of last-mile delivery technologies, namely complexity, collaboration efforts between users and application developers and the impact of technical knowledge and expertise on the potentially involved users. The sharing economy helps organisations reduce contaminants, emissions and carbon footprints, and last-mile logistics is one of the tools of the sharing economy that can enhance the productivity and competitiveness of logistics and boost consumer fulfillment. This research will help enhance organisations’ performance in Egypt as a developing country and push towards applying environmental sustainability practices, as it introduces a tool to enhance customer satisfaction and reduce emissions by illustrating how last-mile logistics can be implemented. This is particularly important as last-mile logistics face some implementation barriers, especially in developing countries. In addition, it will help in extending the theory through conceptualising its abstract ideas with the research variables and applying it in a different context.