A2 – Sustainable management for autonomous cooperating logistics processes – Conceptualization, chances and limits (completed)

Motivation

Autonomous cooperation in logistics confronts businesses with a complex organizational change. Motivation for subproject A2 is to prepare the implementation and sustainability of autonomous cooperating logistics processes from a managerial perspective.

Central research question is: What are the prerequisites for more decisions in favour of autonomous cooperating logistics processes in practice and to sustain a high level of of autonomy over a long-term time horizon?

Results Phase 1 (2004-2007)

The contradictory relationship between autonomous local decision making and the adequacy of the decision behaviour in regard to global goals is a central issue in respect of the successful implementation of autonomous cooperating logistics processes. After dealing with the notion of dilemma and its use in the management context, different strategies to deal with dilemmas and their relevance in the context of autonomous cooperating logistics processes were addressed. The subproject particularly focused on approaches to deal with dilemmas without resolving the tension between the contradictory poles. In this context, the question of the legitimisation of trade-offs through explicit decision rules seems to be most important.