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Six transportation firms (one in each mode) participated in an exploratory study to investigate factors that influence the time lag in decision making over the adoption and implementation stages for innovation. For a sample of 32 innovations, the single best predictor of the amount of time required to progress from one stage of the decision-making process to the next was the cost of the innovation (R 2 = 0.23, p 2 ) in the innovation and adoption time period. A recursive, multi-stage path model was constructed and in general it was found that secondary innovation attributes act as intervening variables for the influence of climate, union reaction, and government regulation and intervention on the innovation and adoption time period. The results of the study suggest that the key leverage point at the firm level for influencing the adoption time period is the risk-taking climate of an organization. If an organization climate exists or can be created which is characterized as supporting calculated risks, then, significantly, the following impacts are likely to occur: (1) the relative advantage necessary for consideration and adoption will be lower than for more conservative firms, but this lower required relative advantage will also stimulate RD&E spending; (2) innovations considered for adoption are likely to have fewer concrete performance criteria; and (3) innovations are likely to be viewed as less complex but more time will be required to reduce this complexity through learning. The results of the study also suggest that individuals with high risk-taking propensity will not be a sufficient single condition to change or alter the risk-taking climate of an organization. The conversion from a conservative climate to one supporting calculated risk is obviously not an easy matter nor is it likely to happen in a short period of time. It is likely to be the product of a group or team-building effort, recognizing the value of diversity in organization membership. Individuals seem to stimulate the innovation process most when a recent manpower flow is involved; that is, the crossing of an organizational boundary by a key organizational member coming to the organization or department of the transportation firm. Influencing the risk-taking climate of an organization alone will not have an impact on the perceived compatibility of the innovations considered for adoption nor the relative ease of testing or trying innovations on a limited basis, even though these two innovation attributes vary significantly and directly. One possible explanation for this result is that during the trial period, the innovation is modified to make it more compatible with organization constraints. Based on the results of this study, with a limited sample of transportation innovations, some mechanism other than organization climate will have to be sought to achieve a fit between innovation, organization and environment. The significant findings of this study do not immediately suggest this approach. Concerning innovation policy and government inte...

The authors update prior studies that evaluated the publication output of faculty members in refereed logistics, supply chain management, and transportation journals to identify current trends and changes. In addition a new weighted average metric is used to allocate credit to universities for co-authored articles. The rankings among the top-tier schools show comparable changes to prior periods in terms of the number of new entrants to the top twenty-five ranked universities. However, for the first time, non-North American universities have entered the top five rankings, indicating the increased global interest in and importance of logistics and supply chain management publications.

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This article updates an ongoing study of author affiliation and institutional productivity based on articles published in peer-reviewed logistics, supply chain management, and transportation journals. Additionally, the authors consider the current status and future trends of journals in electronic format. Our findings show an increasing percentage of contributions by academic as opposed to nonacademic authors. We also find reasonable stability in the publication output of the top ten ranked institutions. However, several new universities, including non-North American schools, have entered the top twenty-five ranked institutions.