Analysing the Effect of Partner Characteristics on the Performance of Horizontal Carrier Collaborations

In order to survive under the ever increasing pressure to operate more efficiently, transportation companies are obliged to adopt a collaborative focus. Although organisations become increasingly aware of the inevitable character of horizontal collaboration, surveys report failure rates up to 70% for starting strategic partnerships. While a growing body of research acknowledges the importance of fit between partners for coalition sustainability, no extensive study has been performed on the numerical relationship between specific company traits and the performance of the alliances these organisations are involved in. This paper empirically investigates the impact of coalition characteristics on attainable collaborative savings in a joint route planning context. Factorial analysis of variance is applied to examine desirable coalition structures for horizontal carrier collaborations based on request sharing. Overall, our experiments suggest that carriers may reap significant operational benefits from sharing orders. However, the extent of these benefits highly depends on the characteristics of the partnering organisations, stressing the importance of careful partner selection.