Environmental complexity related information for the assessment of country logistics environments: Implications for spatial transaction costs and foreign location attractiveness.

With on-going fragmentation and distribution of production and consumption across geographical space, information about national logistics systems is becoming increasingly important to decision makers in internationally operating firms and organisations. While continuing research on country logistics assessment generates some of this information, its relevance for the decision makers, and relationship to their unpredictability from foreign national logistics systems remains indefinite. This paper identifies and categorises the relevant, available information on country logistics environments by using a content analysis approach. We demonstrate the immensity and nature of this information, are able to confirm the changing spatial transaction cost structures, and to reflect upon the overall conditions of information-related complexity and globalisation in the environment. Besides making a contribution to the further development of the spatial impedance factors and measures that form the basis for decision maker unpredictability, the paper offers an alternative approach for measuring the importance of transportation costs in industrial location, and offers a useful lens to distinguish between the emerging literatures on national logistics systems. Finally the paper also offers practical implications on location attractiveness for investment promotion agencies and other public sector agencies for business development and cluster growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]