Information Technology Capability, Adoption, Logistics Service Quality and the Performance of Third Party Logistics Providers

The purpose of the study was to examine the relationships between IT capability, IT adoption, logistics service quality and performance of third party logistics firms in Uganda. The study was prompted by the delays in customs clearance; bureaucratic systems and lengthy cargo forwarding processes largely of manual nature that are evident among the activities of the third party logistics providers in Uganda. This could be attributed to lack of IT capability, low IT adoption and poor logistics service quality. A cross sectional data was collected from a sample of 80 registered Clearing and forwarding firms in Uganda selected from a population of 109 firms using a simple random sampling technique. Data was collected using a close ended questionnaire. The results indicate significant positive relationships between IT capability, IT adoption, logistics service quality and performance of third party logistics firms. Findings also revealed that IT adoption and logistics service quality are significant predictors of the performance of the third party logistics providers. However, IT capability was found not to be a significant predictor of performance of third party logistics providers. Findings further revealed that IT adoption was a better significant predictor of the performance of third party logistics providers than logistics service quality. The research recommends that clearing and forwarding firms in Uganda need to adopt IT quicker and increase logistics service quality in order to improve on the performances of their clearing and forwarding operations especially in the areas of documentation, cargo tracking, warehousing, and shipment operations.