Open Access

Wanja Wellbrock, Daniela Ludin, Erika Müller, Benjamin Högele, Javier Villalba-Diez, Wolfgang Gerstlberger, Malte Ackermann

• This paper examines the strategic relevance of logistics for the world largest companies. This is done by utilizing a quantitative content analysis on annual reports and other corporate publicationsThis paper examines the strategic relevance of logistics for the world largest companies. This is done by utilizing a quantitative content analysis on annual reports and other corporate publications of the Top 500 worldwide corporations, listed in the Forbes Global 2000 ranking, over a period from 2007 to 2017. The analysis concentrates on word frequencies of predefined key words related to logistics resulting in 4,565 observations Findings are further analyzed related to differences by continent or industry sector. The key findings show that the strategic relevance of logistics in Asian multinational corporations was considerably higher than in their European or North American counterparts from 2007 to 2017. Using the GICS industry classification scheme, the analysis shows that the strategic relevance is stronger endorsed within the sectors industrials, consumer discretionary, consumer staples and materials compared to the sectors health care, communication services, information technology, real estate, utilities and financials. The development of the energy sector shows the most significant changes over the examined period. This paper builds upon further research of the authors on this topic and adds explorative information to the relatively new research field of assessing the strategic relevance of logistics in multinational corporations via quantitative content analysis.…