Aplicación De La Técnica Del Focus Group En La Detección De Áreas De Investigación Dentro Del Nuevo Campo De La Logística Inversa /

La Logística Inversa (LI) puede considerarse un nuevo campo de investigación dentro del más amplio de la Logística -la mayor parte de las referencias datan de los noventa-. Dada la idoneidad de la técnica del Focus Group cuando el conocimiento sobre un determinado tema es escaso, se la utiliza en este nuevo campo, con un triple propósito: contrastar el nivel de conocimiento existente acerca de la disciplina; recabar información que sirviera para confrontar lo ya vertido en la literatura; e identificar posibles áreas emergentes para futuras investigaciones. A este fin se organizan dos diferentes Focus groups; uno compuesto por investigadores académicos de la disciplina logística, procedentes de seis países europeos; el segundo compuesto por directivos empresariales con fuerte vinculación con la LI. / Reverse Logistics (RL) may be considered as a relatively recent sub-field (most of references are dated from the 90’s) within the more ample one, the Logistics. The novelty of the RL topic together with the fact that the Focus group technique is one of the most suitable to apply for areas in which little is known, lead to use of this technique to organize two different meetings with a triple purpose: on one hand, to identify the level of knowledge about this topic at the time of the study; on the other hand to serve as a counterpoint of the preceding literature review; finally , to gather information about the most important emerging areas of Reverse Logistics. In one of focus group, researchers with academic background in general Logistics and from six different European countries were invited. In the second one, characterization differs, as the participants are managers with strong Reverse Logistics responsibility within the local Finnish enterprises where they work.