Case 3: Logistics service provider

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58 [but] it has not been taken into account that goods need to be delivered, and handicapped citizens have not been taken into account.

(Participant 3, Appendix 2c, line 3)

The interviewee states that these constraints will also be a hurdle for innovative and greener solutions such as electric cars, robots, drones, and self-driving trucks for freight transport in urban areas. The physical and spatial constraints mentioned here also become an issue when attempting to apply solutions to the often mentioned negative externalities of urban freight, such as noise and congestion. The interviewee uses the example of evening or nightly deliveries, which are used to improve issues with congestion and pollution.

He explains that while it may work for some companies, the fact that the citizens of Copenhagen have returned to their homes and parked their cars in the streets, worsens the physical restrictions that drivers usually experience during the day related to lack of parking and poor shop access. Pressures related to infrastructure and space are coercive.

In a highly competitive sector such as freight transport, customers have high expectations towards their chosen service provider in terms of fulfilling their demands on quality and efficiency. Being in the transport business means doing what the customer wants, as long as it is legal, and inability to fulfil demand will make customers go to a competitor instead. Such expectations are coercive pressures. Another set of stakeholders that may influence the business of transport companies is citizens. While they are not involved in the freight network or other initiatives on an individual basis, they enter the field when they are disturbed by goods deliveries, such as in the case of nightly deliveries. Citizen complaints may, for instance, reclassify an area to a ‘silent area’ or a shop to a ‘silent shop’, making evening and nightly distribution impossible.

This is another type of coercive pressure.

Lastly, a challenge that was mentioned by the interviewee, involved other firms’ lack of adherence to rules and requirements for minimum wages in particular. For those firms that do follow such requirements, it means that they will have to increase their efficiency in order to “make up for” the salary costs. This pressure for efficiency is an additional stress factor for drivers delivering in the city, in addition to avoiding right turn accidents, finding parking, and efficiently unloading and loading goods. The interviewee shares that they have experienced a recruitment problem because of such pressures:

59 So it’s far between 60 DKK per hour and 210 [DKK per hour], and that leads to our employees having to be fairly efficient, […] and that is another pressure that overall makes it difficult to find and recruit drivers to drive in Copenhagen.

(Participant 3, Appendix 2c, line 12)

Seeing that this originates in an expectation both from the firm but also other stakeholders to be efficient in their operations, this is also a coercive pressure.

Source/Type Coercive Mimetic Normative

Authorities Stricter requirements for

employees’ work

environment and rest times

Authorities Pressure for

environmentally friendly equipment and practices Urban space Infrastructural and spatial

constraints such as ground surface, poor access to shops, and lack of space to park and load

Customers Expectations and demands

for services

Citizens Complaints on noise and other disturbances from urban freight transport Firm and stakeholders Expectation and demand

to deliver goods efficiently to be profitable

Table 10. Sources and pressures summarized, Case 3. Source: Author

5.2.3.2 Strategies to manage institutional pressures

The transport company uses several different approaches in dealing with the institutional pressures of the urban environment. The pressures that the transport company in the case is faced with are all coercive pressures – either requirements, demands, or expectations from stakeholders in the environment to act in a certain way or implement certain practices.

60 In terms of regulations and requirements, the transport company follows the rules. This translates into education for drivers because the environment expects both efficient deliveries of goods but also that the drivers contribute to traffic safety. It also means that employees are given the minimum wage as a minimum and that new requirements are acted upon once they are set. This is to a large extent the approach the company has to expectations from its customers as well – that as long as something is legal and they are paid for it, they will do whatever the customers ask. It can be argued that this is an acquiescence strategy and a compliance tactic, where the company consciously abides to the institutional pressures it experiences in anticipation of benefits, such as support of predictability.

One way to approach the physical and spatial constraints is to park on side streets and walk the rest of the way to the shops to deliver goods, as well as parking in one spot only and delivering to several shops from there, rather than driving around for new places to park. This approach is related to Oliver’s (1991) strategic approach of avoidance and escaping the domain where an issue is encountered. It does not mean that the company avoids the city as a whole, but the drivers avoid certain streets or areas where it is difficult to park when they have to deliver goods.

Participation in Copenhagen’s freight network is another way for the company to raise issues and discuss these with other stakeholders to find common solutions. Additionally, parts of the organization is collaborating with the municipality they are located in in order to reduce the recruitment problem:

We’re expecting them to get themselves ready for work, and some of them don’t make it. But generally, currently, they are satisfied with the results they have. […] This is also a way for us to go in and say ‘how can we recruit someone; how can we take a social responsibility in reality’. So it’s self-serving help. Which is why we also really want to do this.

(Participant 3, Appendix 2c, line 18)

This approach is more towards compromising and bargaining with stakeholders to reduce expectations for compliance. For issues where it is important to be heard, the transport company relies on the trade associations it is a member of to use its status in trying to influence the other actors.

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