Literature on Logistics Outsourcing in Africa

The first step was the range of years covered by the literature which was 21 years – from the year 2000 to 2021. The second step specified the source of journal articles reviewed which was nine renowned databases of academic journals were used in this regard, namely: Emerald, ScienceDirect, JSTOR, EBSCO, Taylor and Francis, Africa Journals Online, Wiley, and Google Scholar. Apart from the nine databases, snowballing was applied to further identify relevant journal articles from the citations and bibliographies of related literature. The third step was words and phrases used to search for the relevant literature which were and/or phrases as ‘logistics in Africa’, ‘outsourcing in Africa’, ‘logistics service providers in Africa’, ‘third-party logistics in Africa’, ‘developing economies’, ‘technology and logistics in Africa’ and ‘contract logistics in Africa’.  Step four contained the analysis criteria where Microsoft Excel and MAXQDA were useful tools in the analysis of the selected articles. Finally, step five showed the outcome of the process where, three important outcomes were envisaged: major findings; focus on current research; and recommendations for future research in the field of logistics outsourcing operations. The exclusion criteria involved non-peer reviewed articles on logistics outsourcing such as book reviews, reports, and conference papers. Secondly, articles addressing logistics outsourcing in the developed countries and other non-African countries without reference to or comparison with African countries were not eligible for selection. Lastly, articles published in other languages other than English were also excluded.