E-Commerce Logistics: A Literature Research Review and Topics for Future Research

Research Methodology

The objective of this study is to provide a systematic literature review of e-commerce logistics. A systematic review approach has been earlier conducted by e.g., Cooper (1989), Tranfield et al. (2003), Bontekoning et al. (2004), Pittaway et al. (2004), Karjalainen et al. (2009), and Islam and Scupola (2011). According to Cooper (1989, pp. 12-13) researchers usually conduct one of two possible types of literature reviews – an integrative research review or a theoretical review. The former summarizes and draws conclusions based on relevant studies, and the latter focuses on the theories employed to explain the phenomena and evaluates them. In this study the appropriate strategy is the integrative research perspective, because the focus of the paper is to discuss the aspects that have been studied in e-commerce logistics, to summarize the key issues studied by analyzing the state-of-the-art of research, and to identify important issues that were unresolved in earlier research, i.e., an agenda for future research arising from the literature review.