824194

research-article20192019
SGOXXX10.1177/2158244018824194SAGE OpenFarooq et al.

Original Research

SAGE Open

A Review of Management and Importance

January-March 2019: 1­–9
© The Author(s) 2019
DOI: 10.1177/2158244018824194
https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244018824194

of E-Commerce Implementation in journals.sagepub.com/home/sgo

Service Delivery of Private Express

Enterprises of China

Qamar Farooq1,2, Peihua Fu1, Yunhong Hao1,

Tchamy Jonathan1, and Yanni Zhang1

Abstract
Express delivery is the growing industry that provides the means to facilitate people across the world by shipping goods and
documents from one place to another. The profitability of sole companies is based on price, quality, reliability, and services.
However, the impact of corporate value capture strategies on the overall sustainability of the value creation process is rarely
discussed in the existing literature. This review article is aimed to develop a model to relate the effectiveness and efficiency
of managerial processes with the quality of service delivery, employment, and customer retention. Extensive literature review
establishes that Advancement in E-commerce Infrastructure strengthens the relationship of good management and customer
retention. The present article further explains the mediation of automation in supply chain management in our model. This
article has a theoretical contribution to the extant literature on e-commerce and supply chain management along with
practical implication for taking care of contemporary techniques to automate the processes for success in Private Express
Enterprise business, particularly for the managers, responsible for corporate performance.

Keywords
corporate social responsibility, recruitment, customer retention, good management, advance e-commerce

Introduction research of logistics and private express enterprises. Previous

China remains indispensible in economic development since
China’s reform and opening-up. The economy has developed
rapidly, and many industries began to show vigorous vitality.
With the emergence of the Internet and e-commerce, logis-
tics industry particularly starts to appear as a new field in the
world of business to foster private economies. Small compa-
nies focus on specialized customer service whereas large
companies compete on the basis of a large range of services.
The express industry is segmented in larger networked couri-
ers and smaller local services (Zhu, 2014).
With the rapid development of economic globalization,
product competition has become a symbol of brand perfor-
mance—Brand competitiveness is the manifestation of com-
prehensive strength. It is true for Chinese auto companies
because the brand value is directly reflected from the brand
performance. However, the construction of Chinese auto
brands is still at the stage of exploration and research. There
is still a big gap between the competitiveness of Chinese auto
brands and foreign brands because the level of industry brand
development needs to be improved. Therefore, the role of the
automobile industry is also of paramount interest in the
studies broadened the perspective of brand competence
research and enriched the industry connotation of brand
competition.
In this connection, the Chinese economy emphasizes the
development of heavy industry to support interconnected
business sectors by escalating the impressibility for develop-
ing commerce to entrust the private merchants. The optimal
management of private enterprises for the good of the coun-
try may ensure the overall benefit to the growing sector
(Brink, 2012). China Express Service is a growing industry
mostly based on an express delivery of parcels while becom-
ing increasingly fierce on rapid trends of competition. Private
companies have the experience of developing the express
industry during 1980 and 1990, and they transformed it in the
1
Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou, China
2
Riphah International University, Islamabad, Pakistan
Corresponding Author:
Peihua Fu, Professor, School of Management and E-Business, Zhejiang
Gongshang University, Hangzhou, China.
Email: edwardfupeihua@hotmail.com

Creative Commons CC BY: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
(http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of
the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages
(https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
2 SAGE Open
21st century with a very indispensable economy in China.
There are mostly three ways to deliver goods through express
or courier—road, rail, or air (Tang & Deng, 2015).
With these ways, China’s rapidly evolving e-commerce
has placed higher demands on the express delivery industry
(EDI): service quality, information modernization, and a
nationwide network. This gives room to analyze inadaptabil-
ity of China’s private express delivery companies (EDCs) in
the e-commerce environment from the angles of service,
information, and network; analyze the difficulties, and finally
propose countermeasures. In light of these aspects, the pres-
ent article is aimed to develop the propositions to further
examine the impact of effective and efficient management of
variables of customer retention, recruitment, and quality of
service delivery. Our work further explores the need for
mediating and moderating effects in possible relationships.
Literature Review
China’s EDI started the express delivery market; it contin-
ued to expand, and as a result, EDCs grew and gained sig-
nificant financial results. This industry is developing quite
rapidly. At present, four regional express delivery centers
have been formed in the eastern region. At the same time,
the four major express industries are developing through the
rolling and progressive sectors in the central and western
regions. Some large cities and megacities have become
regional centers for the development of the EDI. A number
of express delivery channels based on underlying transport
lines have been formed nationwide. The express delivery
system of China is centered on the more sensitive transpor-
tation demand at the time. For most EDCs, managers should
strive to strengthen enterprise information construction and
professional personnel training, unify the management ideas
of outlets throughout the country, vigorously promote the
standardization of work processes, increase the technologi-
cal content of equipment, improve the business skills of
employees, and provide better customer service (Xiao-Hui,
2014). They should create a private express brand, create
more employment opportunities, change people’s lifestyle,
improve living standards, and promote national economic
development.
For EDCs, the commerce of any business has a key indi-
rect impact, which is a way of buying and selling goods
through an electronic network. This new technology encoun-
ters certain problems, especially in the logistics areas.
Simultaneously, it has helped the development of opportuni-
ties in the logistics business, together with the unmanageable
development in the logistics. Without e-commerce, we could
not be able to reach this emancipation that we all observe
today. However, e-commerce logistics are not well devel-
oped enough even in thickly populated China. With the
regional variation, delivery time also varies, and it is difficult
to accomplish on-time delivery in specific areas. The reason
behind this is the construction of logistics infrastructures,
which are not unified perhaps because of too low efficiency
of logistics (Hou, 2014).
Communication and Management
To contribute to extant literature, we have to examine the
progress of modern communications and communication
tools. With this, we find the historical background of the
express industry, the factors that promote the development of
Chinese express industry, and the role of the express industry
in social development. The knowledge evolved from the
express industry also contributed in the first industrial revo-
lution in the past, and the present reform reflects its ability to
grasp the knowledge to open further revolutionary processes.
Big express companies have more than 10,000 employees,
and their development can create a large number of jobs
(Tang & Deng, 2015). This is why good management of pri-
vate express enterprises can work for the elimination of
unemployment and providing the opportunities of intern-
ships, especially in developing countries. It is also acknowl-
edged in terms of corporate social responsibility (CSR) when
the aim of management is effectiveness and efficiency.
Recent research highlights the need of firms to pay attention
toward unattended wants of people residing in the commu-
nity as the social and managerial solution (Hao, Farooq, &
Zhang, 2018); hence, we define good management as the
process of getting things done effectively and efficiently.
China’s EDI is in a new era, wherein this market has con-
tinued to expand, and EDCs have grown and achieved sig-
nificant targets. The Chinese EDI is developing quite rapidly
and presently contains four zones. Some major cities and big
cities have become regional centers for the development of
this industry. The system of the China Express is based on
the more sensitive transportation needs at the time (Xiao-
Hui, 2014). The impact of human resources on service per-
formance is positive but not significant. It is probably
because human resources play a regulatory role and will
reduce their influence, or because employees engaged in for-
eign affairs do not have enough time to participate in services
(Liao & Huang, 2016).
Good management theories are mandatory for good man-
agement practices because bad management theories can
demolish good management practices (Ghoshal, 2005). The
potential class analysis reveals the existence of two different
strategic resource management (SRM) competency strate-
gies; the current optimization strategy depends on the char-
acteristics of the supply base and business environment
(Mitrega & Pfajfar, 2015). Suppliers can control their own
strategies, which can help them develop their ability to cor-
rect imbalance power between themselves and buyers
(Sinkovics, Hoque, & Sinkovics, 2018). The private express
enterprises in China are not fully meeting the development
requirement of the economy in aspects of service, informa-
tion, and network. This is because it has encountered many
problems at the present stage, like lack of funds, low
Farooq et al. 3
management level, declined recruitment capacity, and weak
human resources. We propose that good management and
managerial expansions in the private sector involved in
express delivery can cause a large number of skill-based and
skill-developing employment opportunities.
Proposition 1: Good management through managerial
expansion in Private Express Enterprises in China will
increase the number of intern recruitments.
The Myth of Express Enterprises in China
Lack of funds is the main reason behind the backward infor-
mation technology (IT) of private courier companies, and at
the same time, it is difficult to form a delivery network across
the country, which ultimately affects the quality of service. It
can be said that capital is the key to the development of pri-
vate express enterprises in China, and the lack of funds is the
biggest bottleneck for its growth. Low management level
leads to poor service quality. For example, due to the lack of
unified management, resulting in an increase of error rate,
lost parts rate, breakage rate, nontimely information feed-
back, express delay, and the number and quality of employ-
ees are the prominent problems in this sector in China (Tang
& Deng, 2015).
Most of the private Chinese companies operating outside
of China are having a direct or indirect influence on e-com-
merce implementation within and outside of China. They
may have more focus on the acquisition and exploitation of
technological resources to achieve the competitive advantage.
Moreover, private companies mostly focus on long-term
investment. Their focus is on R&D and human capital, which
is the key to manage the entity relationship in supply chain
management. Due to their stable infrastructures, certain pri-
vate enterprises can articulate good management through
effectiveness and efficiency of the processes (Al-Obadian &
Scully, 1992; Amighini, Rabellotti, & Sanfilippo, 2013).
Analysis of the business volume of express services for
China to explore the influencing factors through the Grey
correlation shows the need for the development of the EDI.
Grey system is between white and black system. The white
system is related to internal characteristics of the fully known
and the black system is the outside world of nothing known.
This theory is an extension of the cybernetic, and the method
is about known information and unknown information. The
express services and influencing factors have been observed
to develop the relationship between service and system
through the grey correlation analysis method. The grey fore-
casting model is a good way to run a business to develop
various performance dimensions, and it strengthens the con-
struction of express delivery business (Tang & Deng, 2015).
Economic development is inseparable from the support
and supervision of policies, so enterprises will generally get
in good contact with the government and be supervised by it.
This relation aims to help them have access to legal and
economic support, which can improve their fast and efficient
development (Song, Ai, & Li, 2015). Previous studies exam-
ined the relationship between online performance quality
and subsequent customer retention. Customer retention
refers to the number of customers a company is keeping-in
for a long time. This may depend on connections, personal
business data, and level of management not only at customer
service level but also across various stakeholders. Innovation
performance can turn into an effective channel (Hao, Zhang,
& Farooq, 2018) useful for the important determinant of
CSR. In contrast with Europe and America, Chinese manag-
ers and executives are regarded as successful due to strong
connections and relationships (Chen, 2001).
The Internet retail industry continues to grow rapidly.
However, some Internet retailers are trying hard to retain
customers because of the fierce competition. They believe
that customer satisfaction with the order fulfillment process
is an important determinant of the overall customer satisfac-
tion with the retailer (Zhongcheng & Shiying, 2017). The
result of the structural equation model of research conducted
by Zhongcheng and Shiying (2017) shows that the satisfac-
tion of logistics quality and cost is positively correlated with
the customer’s purchase satisfaction and customer retention
rate. In addition, the results of their research show that
although purchase satisfaction is a strong indicator of cus-
tomer retention, the potential drivers of purchase satisfac-
tion do not directly affect customer retention as purchase
satisfaction.
Factors affecting Chinese auto companies through the
recognition system have already been studied. This helps
Chinese auto companies understand and enhance the com-
petitiveness of their industry brands. To measure and evalu-
ate competitiveness, some of the discussed domestic scholars
put forward the comparison of factor analysis, content analy-
sis, fuzzy comprehensive evaluation, gray evaluation, and
comprehensive index analysis.
Service Delivery Quality
To establish an evaluation index system, the competitiveness
of enterprises can be used to quantitatively assess the com-
petitiveness of whole industry, for the study of competitive-
ness of private enterprises in the specific region. This
relationship in western private enterprises clearly reflects the
advantages and disadvantages of the existing competitive-
ness of private enterprises in the western region, and thus
finds a reasonable way to improve the competitiveness of
private enterprises in the said region of China (Zhongcheng
& Shiying, 2017).
The ultimate goal of corporate customer service is to build
relationships. Relationships allow simple repairs before bad
news spreads. Because many of the customers are in the same
target market, bad experiences may spread quickly through
social media and online reviews, leading to more customer
distraction. To prevent this from happening, there are several
4 SAGE Open
proven technologies that can strengthen relationships with
customers and make them excited about doing business. One
such phenomenon is “reciprocity,” which means doing some-
thing for customers and in turn guiding them to help business.
This is the key to letting customers fall in love with the spe-
cific brand. It can be a good help factor to encourage custom-
ers to stay in the company. For this purpose, companies need
to continuously provide value to customers before making
any requests. It creates an unbalanced feeling that makes
them eager to “repay” this discount by being consistent with
business. The simplest point is to ensure that each customer
service representative has a customer name when they begin
contact. Also, it is necessary to have a customer profile ready
to ensure that the experience is seamlessly integrated with
past interactions with customers (Chang & Zhang, 2016). The
interactions strengthened through effective and efficient man-
agement reduce trust deficit and step certainly to improve ser-
vice quality. Social media can play a vital role in purposeful
interactions not only for external but also for internal com-
munication of CSR (Hao, Farooq, & Sun, 2018).
The question on the relationship of performance manage-
ment and service delivery is of great importance (Beeri,
Uster, & Vigoda-Gadot2018). There is an optimal invest-
ment level in terms of investment income. Overall, through
good management, service platform providers can not only
understand how interoperability and portability investments
affect costs, enable cost-effective service integration, and
create value but also design new strategies for optimizing
investments (Haile & Altmann, 2017); thus highlights can
have a positive effect on service delivery quality.
Proposition 2: Good management in private express enter-
prises affects positively the quality of service delivery.
Why Customer Retention?
The biggest tool to increase profits is customer retention. It
directly affects the revenue of each new customer acquisition.
To increase customer retention, companies should build a
strong brand that encourages a sense of community. By using
social proofs to speak out the language of customers and sup-
port bigger business, enterprises can allow customers to
promise them in the coming times. If businesses are commit-
ted to making the sales process frictionless, impressive, and
friendly, they can repeat the purchase experience over and
over again. By becoming an expert in the customer’s eyes and
creating a community that rewards the most loyal customers,
they can generate a substantial profit. Regardless of the size
of business, they need to maintain long-term customer bene-
fits to see the biggest gains (Chang & Zhang, 2016).
CSR and Enterprise Management
Understanding the process of CSR will help to better under-
stand the relationship between CFP, guide CSR investment
management, and encourage them to participate in commu-
nity service programs (Karaye, Ishak, & Che-Adam, 2014).
It is interesting to state that CSR can be communicated
through both modes of communication with respect to nativ-
ity (Hao, Farooq, & Sun, 2018). Studies show the relation-
ship of customer satisfaction and their retention
(Hennig-Thurau & Klee, 1997); the need is to find this link
in the context of good management and CSR. Recent research
describes a deep impression of the impact of CSR on cus-
tomer’s attitudes (Doorn, Onrust, Verhoef, & Bügel, 2017).
One of the major obstacles in conducting environmental
corporate social responsibility (ECSR) research is the opera-
tions and analytical technique. Existing ECSR measurement
tools either require major data collection or require special
subscriptions to proprietary databases but have limited repro-
ducibility. The ECSR measurement method helps internal
consistency and reliability among assessors, as well as con-
vergence and discriminant validity.
ECSR is a concept where companies incorporate environ-
mental issues into their business operations and interactions
with stakeholders especially with customers without affect-
ing economic performance (Rashid, Khalid, & Rahman,
2015). This addresses customer concerns and can improve
the level of their loyalty with enterprises. Research on this
concept does not cover corporate governance of the organi-
zational-level analysis, and the impact of ECSR initiatives
on consumer behavior or other marketing structures is still
unexplored. We can hypothesize this relationship to explore
the relevant dimensions of ECSR and its potential impact on
positive and enduring relationships with customers and orga-
nizations. It can help raise people’s interest in ECSR, which
is a strategic marketing method with long-term and positive
bottom-line interests.
Proposition 3: Good management through ECSR and
corporate customer service will have a positive relation-
ship with customer retention.
Automation in Supply Chain Management
The underground logistics system (ULS) is one of the impor-
tant freight transportation methods in many cities, especially
metropolises, and will become a new way to solve the prob-
lem of urban traffic congestion. The development and imple-
mentation of the urban ULS have attracted the attention of
some developed countries. Many foreign scholars have stud-
ied the construction of urban underground pipelines and the
development of vehicles. The operation of ULS rarely
addresses the vital issues such as cargo transportation, node
location issues, and capacity determination issues, which can
be addressed using an integrated optimization model that
eliminates the limitations of a single optimization model
(Jianjun, Yun, Ke, & Jin, 2007).
ULS is an important means to solve urban traffic prob-
lems with unique advantages. China’s freight needs new
Farooq et al. 5
modes of transportation. Therefore, ULS is receiving more
and more attention. However, so far, few scholars and practi-
tioners have studied ULS in China. Although ULS shows
good opportunities for development, it also faces enormous
challenges, providing a comprehensive and novel perspec-
tive for China’s ULS research (Chen, Dong, & Ren, 2017).
Therefore, the improvement of urban intelligence has bright
prospects in China.
The horizon of good governance management is wider
and open for private express enterprises. It is not limited to
human resource management rather it needs extension to
efficiency in terms of implementation of e-commerce in sup-
ply chain management. Managerial success is regarded in
various countries of globe where managers are assumed suc-
cessful broadly on basis of transactions and wealth, or their
links with key entities (Chen, 2001; Hitt, Lee, & Yucel, 2002;
Xin, 2002). The macro-environment of China’s industrializa-
tion and urbanization are conducive to the development of
urban big data. The successful management and use of open
city big data will promote the development of urban knowl-
edge services, create new markets and business opportuni-
ties, and further promote the development of urban
intelligence. Therefore, it is imperative for China to use the
data of large cities to give full play to its unique advantages
and enhance the intelligence (Pan, Tian, Liu, Gu, & Hua,
2016). It seems that positive supply chain possibly producing
strong social connections can be benefitted through good
management, and may put a direct impact rather in the visi-
ble mediating way between good management and custom-
er’s loyalty in Chinese express industry.
China’s manufacturing companies have entered in more
complex and higher value-added industries. The long-
standing problems in China’s manufacturing industry are
quality of suppliers and suspicious products. The evidence
that more and more companies are adopting advanced
logistics solutions is increasingly using the Chinese hub to
bring products from multiple suppliers or origins to center,
where they can handle a large number of goods. Supply
chain visibility is a top priority for all companies, espe-
cially those operating in China. To achieve a high level of
transparency, companies need on-site intelligence, strin-
gent information requirements, and close collaboration
with everyone involved in the product supply chain
(Masabo, 2013). Timely procurement and delivery of goods
provide good experiences to customers, and their retention
tends to proliferate with good supply chain management.
Proposition 4: Automated supply chain management
mediates the relationship between good management and
its customer retention.
IT and E-Commerce
The key to letting IT operations better meet the needs of
developers is to break existing silos of IT infrastructure. The
hyper-converged platform is not an isolated computing, stor-
age, and networking professional team; rather, it integrates
these functions under a common control plan. Regardless of
the approach taken, IT organizations are becoming more
flexible by several orders of magnitude. The IT operations
team is still responsible for setting up barriers to ensure the
effective use of IT resources.
The well-designed super-steering architecture enables
IT organizations to implement cultural changes at their
own pace and speed. Although hyper-converged platforms
can significantly reduce IT operational costs, IT staff can
add more value to the business through other means, but
most importantly, before everyone realizes that their daily
work will become better, there is the time to make adjust-
ments (Celsi & Wolfinbarger, 2001). The formation of an
e-commerce system through professionals is also impor-
tant. It should start from the professional aspect with some
good theories and practices to make them understand the
concepts of logistic efficiency through e-commerce.The
use of modern technology can help ameliorate all the pro-
cedures needed for a better implementation of the e-com-
merce logistics services (Hou, 2014).
Since the late 1990s, China has been committed to foster-
ing the logistics industry and improving its logistics manage-
ment skills, because China’s large-scale manufacturing
industry has promoted the rapid development of the logistics
industry in recent years. The ratio of total logistics cost to
GDP represents the efficiency of logistics operations in the
economy, that is, the productivity of the logistics industry in
an era of IT. The cost to GDP is also used as an indicator of
the level of development of the logistics industry. In general,
the higher the percentage, the lower is the efficiency of the
logistics industry. The trend of mergers and acquisitions is
one of the most important factors in the development of the
global logistics industry. This acquisition and logistics com-
pany’s ability to establish its own infrastructure and service
scale is the key to maintaining competitiveness.
However, in doing business, Chinese people not only
need to rely on the Internet, technology, talent and other
resources, but also need to adapt to the needs of the whole
market, and act in accordance with a certain social responsi-
bility and regulatory system. Business etiquettes are neces-
sary for business expansion in Chinese market (Lam, 2009).
The air cargo industry is an accurate science because each
transport unit is weighed as it is directly related to the air
freight rate. If the cost of air transport is high due to shipping
problems and the proximity of the cargo to the port facilities,
the first transportation branch can be shipped. The final part
of the use of air transport offers the possibility of rapidly
covering a wide range of market bases, dividing a single con-
tainer shipment into several shipments, each of which can be
bound to a different market. An important challenge for mar-
itime and airfreight logistics is the use of local roads and
highways to transport goods between a limited area on the
borders of ports and airports, and the goods must be cleared
6 SAGE Open
Figure 1.  A model of good management for private express enterprises.
out of customs. Its effectiveness is also possible through
e-commerce. The corridor can simplify customs procedures
for the transit of limited goods between customs entities,
which helps to support the use technology in logistical
requirements for maritime and air transport (Yang, Hui,
Leung, & Chen, 2010).
E-commerce is required by EDCs for quality service,
information, and network to gain competitive advantage.
Therefore, there are some aspects used to analyze the ability
of private express enterprises and e-commerce in China. The
ability to grasp the knowledge related to the private express
industrial revolution is the key to success in this industry
(Zhu, 2014). Self-service technology (SST) is a basic fea-
ture, and due to the rapid development of this technology, the
flourishing of businesses has increased the importance of
human–computer communication in our daily lives.
The adoption and promotion of E-commerce in SMEs are
the areas getting relevance in information system literature
research. Technological uncertainties and global centralized
economic systems have examined the obstacles faced by
SMEs in adopting e-commerce and adopting peers. The
wavelet participation of strategic alliances can not only find
ready-made technology and marketing expertise but can also
ease the impact of global market turbulence. E-commerce
has fundamentally changed all aspects of the organization.
The traditional view is still the linear model of SMEs adopt-
ing e-commerce (Santarelli & D’altri, 2003).
Proposition 5: Advancement in E-Commerce infrastruc-
ture will strengthen the relationship between good man-
agement and effective supply chain management
The proposed model is shown in Figure 1.
Discussion
Researchers have highlighted many problems in general
managerial development and implementation, as well as the
background, problems, and research objectives of China’s
logistics industry. The logistics literature revolves around
three major elements of the development of China’s logistics
industry. Those are cost, productivity, and expansion. It
brings factors of transportation, government supervision,
warehousing, IT support, infrastructure lying to further
research, and their impact on logistics performance. Previous
research shows that these are the main factors restricting the
development of China’s logistics industry. Previous research
is somehow helpful to address the issues affecting the devel-
opment of China’s logistics industry, namely, integrated IT to
reduce transportation costs, but the gap to find the impact of
e-commerce use in logistics business for customer retention
remained unexplored.
Express delivery is the most important form of logistics in
the field of electronic commerce. With the development of
economics, especially the development of online retailing,
China’s express industry has ushered in the development of
spring. According to statistics, China’s express industry has
increased by more than 27% in 5 consecutive years, of which
more than 50% of its revenue comes from electronic com-
merce. The economic activities and e-commerce provided
the development power for the express industry. Express
companies deal with millions of items of the express ­package.
It facilitates people’s life and promotes the development of
Farooq et al. 7
the national economy, in turn, and changes people’s way of
life.
In a closed ecosystem, end users cannot interoperate with
other platforms; they easily port their software and data with-
out paying for interface integration or data reformatting.
Customers of these closed software service platforms are
locked. We can use an economics perspective to investigate
the value creation of providers and users at different levels of
interoperability. The main point is that companies should use
their improvements in corporate financial performance to
establish stakeholder influence inventory while performing
CSR.
According to statistics from the Hong Kong Trade
Development Council, China’s leading logistics companies
such as UPS, FedEx Express, and DHL-Sinotrans have an
average annual growth rate of more than 30% in China and
provide more outsourced service companies with profes-
sional logistics development. In addition, as competition
intensifies, market share is expected to shift from local
companies to foreign investment companies or local giants,
who can provide more efficient services at lower costs
(Choy et al., 2014). At the same time, Chinese private
enterprises and government agencies should make a joint
effort to build an efficient and intelligent logistics system
and industrial norms to bring aggregate promotion in fur-
ther development of the express industry. Logistics sector
may attract the attention of decision-making bodies to for-
mulate better policies and also to form a financing of infra-
structure because these companies play a big role in
employment and prosperity.
SMEs play an important role in this industry. In recent
years, SMEs have achieved significant development, and
the relationship between the development of SMEs and
e-commerce is getting closer. In this study, we have ana-
lyzed the moderating status of management and e-commerce
to evaluate the situation, problems, and countermeasures for
the relationship of good management with social and eco-
nomic outcomes. Although e-commerce development is
quite possible in the EDI of China by dividing the barrier
into external and internal, the present study has the limita-
tion of possible omitted variable bias. China should promote
the popularization and extensive application of computer
network technology, the rise of electronic commerce and
transformation of people’s traditional shopping concept,
development of express delivery, and should smoothly con-
nect it with the integrated transportation system. The devel-
opment of the express industry is beneficial to the society
and people.
Conclusion
In the success of any sort of business, customer retention
is necessary. This article has shown that companies need
to overcome obstacles, ensure trust, and encourage cus-
tomers to take out the wallet (at least digitally) and
actually pay the money. This is a difficult process. Existing
customers almost always spend more than new customers.
However, despite the huge benefits of customer loyalty,
marketers are trying to make it a reality in their business.
To keep customers long, enterprises need to be part of
them by outperforming through good management. This
needs to have a deep understanding of e-commerce used
to attract image and identity. Despite certain literary con-
tributions and policy implication for the managers of pri-
vate express industry, present work has indicated the need
to conduct an empirical research for testing the prescribed
model.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect
to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support
for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This
research was supported by the Science and Technology Project of
Zhejiang Province (No. LGF18G010002), the Humanities and
Social Sciences Foundation of the Ministry of Education (No.
17YJA630015), the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang
Province (LQ19G020004), and the Key Research Center of
Humanities and Social Sciences in Universities of Zhejiang
Province (JYTgs20151104).
References
Al-Obaidan, A. M., & Scully, G. W. (1992). Efficiency differences
between private and state-owned enterprises in the interna-
tional petroleum industry. Applied Economics, 24, 237-246.
Amighini, A., Rabellotti, R., & Sanfilippo, M. (2013). Do Chinese
state-owned and private enterprises differ in their internation-
alization strategies? China Economic Review, 27, 312-325.
doi:10.1016/j.chieco.2013.02.003
Beeri, I., Uster, A., & Vigoda-Gadot, E. (2018). Does performance
management relate to good governance? A study of its relation-
ship with citizens’ satisfaction with and trust in Israeli local
government. Public Performance & Management Review,
1-39. doi:10.1080/15309576.2018.1436074
Brink, T. T. (2012). Perspectives on the development of the private
business sector in china. China: An International Journal, 10,
1-19.
Celsi, R., & Wolfinbarger, M. (2001). Creating renaissance
employees in an era of convergence between information
technology and business strategy: A proposal for business
schools. Journal of Education for Business, 76, 308-312.
doi:10.1080/08832320109599654
Chang, C.-W., & Zhang, J. Z. (2016). The effects of channel expe-
riences and direct marketing on customer retention in multi-
channel settings. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 36, 77-90.
doi:10.1016/j.intmar.2016.05.002
Chen, M. J. (2001). Inside Chinese business: A guide for manag-
ers worldwide. Harvard Business Press. Available from https://
books.google.com.pk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=nXX2ECbGw
wcC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=Inside+Chinese+business:+A+
8 SAGE Open
guide+for+managers+worldwide&ots=eZttx8hqfG&sig=Gw
C6c_it099H6Aeyq4vox0XreZw#v=onepage&q=Inside%20
Chinese%20business%3A%20A%20guide%20for%20manag-
ers%20worldwide&f=false
Chen, Z., Dong, J., & Ren, R. (2017). Urban underground logistics
system in China: Opportunities or challenges? Underground
Space, 2, 195-208. doi:10.1016/j.undsp.2017.08.002
Choy, K. L., Gunasekaran, A., Lam, H. Y., Chow, K. H., Tsim,
Y. C., Ng, T. W., . . . Lu, X. A. (2014). Impact of information
technology on the performance of logistics industry: the case of
Hong Kong and Pearl Delta region. Journal of the Operational
Research Society, 65, 904-916. doi:10.1057/jors.2013.121
Doorn, J., Onrust, M., Verhoef, P. C., & Bügel, M. S. (2017). The
impact of corporate social responsibility on customer attitudes
and retention—The moderating role of brand success indica-
tors. Marketing Letters, 28(6), 1-13. doi:10.1007/s11002-017-
9433-6
Ghoshal, S. (2005). Bad management theories are destroying good
management practices. Academy of Management Learning &
Education, 4, 75-91. doi:10.5465/amle.2005.16132558
Haile, N., & Altmann, J. (2017). Evaluating investments in por-
tability and interoperability between software service plat-
forms. Future Generation Computer Systems. doi:10.1016/j.
future.2017.04.040
Hao, Y., Farooq, Q., & Sun, Y. (2018). Development of theoretical
framework and measures for the role of social media in realizing
corporate social responsibility through native and non-native
communication modes: Moderating effects of cross-cultural
management. Corporate Social Responsibility & Environmental
Management, 25, 704-711. doi:10.1002/csr.1523
Hao, Y., Farooq, Q., & Zhang, Y. (2018). Unattended social
wants and corporate social responsibility of leading firms:
Relationship of intrinsic motivation of volunteering in pro-
posed welfare programs and employee attributes. Corporate
Social Responsibility & Environmental Management, 25,
1029-1038. doi:10.1002/csr.1681
Hao, Y., Zhang, Y., & Farooq, Q. (2018). The contribution of lead-
ing firms in environmental sustainability: Dampening the det-
rimental effect of political capital ties. International Journal
of Environmental Science and Technology, 15, 2581-2594.
doi:10.1007/s13762-018-2035-x
Hennig-Thurau, T., & Klee, A. (1997). The impact of cus-
tomer satisfaction and relationship quality on customer
retention: A critical reassessment and model develop-
ment. Psychology & Marketing, 14, 737-764. Retrieved
from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/
(SICI)1520-6793(199712)14:8%3C737::AID-
MAR2%3E3.0.CO;2-F
Hitt, M. A., Lee, H. U., & Yucel, E. (2002). The importance of
social capital to the management of multinational enter-
prises: Relational networks among Asian and Western
firms. Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 19, 353-372.
doi:10.1023/A:1016247920461
Hou, X. F. (2014). Analysis on the situation of China’s e-commerce
logistics. Advanced Materials Research, 926-930, 3750-3753.
Retrieved from www.scientific.net/AMR.926-930.3750
Jianjun, Z., Yun, P., Ke, H., & Jin, Z. (2007, April). Optimization
model for urban underground logistics system in logistics
management. International Conference on Management
Innovation. Retrieved from http://www.wanfangdata.
com.cn/details/detail.do?_type=conference&id=WFH
YXW209391
Karaye, Y. I., Ishak, Z., & Che-Adam, N. (2014). The mediat-
ing effect of stakeholder influence capacity on the relation-
ship between corporate social responsibility and corporate
financial performance. Procedia—Social and Behavioral
Sciences, 164, 528-534. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.11.142
Lam, L. L. (2009). Beyond credibility of doing business in China:
Strategies for improving corporate citizenship of foreign mul-
tinational enterprises in China. Journal of Business Ethics, 87,
137-146. doi:10.1007/s10551-008-9803-3
Liao, K. H., & Huang, I. S. (2016). Impact of vision, strategy,
and human resource on nonprofit organization service perfor-
mance. Procedia—Social and Behavioral Sciences, 224, 20-
27. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2016.05.395
Masabo, H. O. (2013). Self–service technology and customer satis-
faction in commercial Banks in Kenya. University of Nairobi.
Retrieved from http://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke:8080/xmlui/han-
dle/123456789/61638
Mitrega, M., & Pfajfar, G. (2015). Business relationship process
management as company dynamic capability improving rela-
tionship portfolio. Industrial Marketing Management, 46, 193-
203. doi:10.1016/j.indmarman.2015.02.029
Pan, Y., Tian, Y., Liu, X., Gu, D., & Hua, G. (2016). Urban big data
and the development of city intelligence. Engineering, 2, 171-
178. doi:10.1016/J.ENG.2016.02.003
Rashid, N. R. N. A., Khalid, S. A., & Rahman, N. I. A. (2015).
Environmental Corporate Social Responsibility (ECSR):
Exploring its influence on customer loyalty. Procedia Economics
& Finance, 31, 705-713. doi:10.1016/S2212-5671(15)01159-4
Santarelli, E., & D’altri, S. (2003). The diffusion of e-commerce
among SMEs: Theoretical implications and empirical evi-
dence. Small Business Economics, 21, 273-283.
Sinkovics, N., Hoque, S. F., & Sinkovics, R. R. (2018). Supplier
strategies and routines for capability development: Implications
for upgrading. Journal of International Management, 24, 348-
368. doi:10.1016/j.intman.2018.04.005
Song, M., Ai, H., & Li, X. (2015). Political connections, financing
constraints, and the optimization of innovation efficiency among
China’s private enterprises. Technological Forecasting & Social
Change, 92, 290-299. doi:10.1016/j.techfore.2014.10.003
Tang, S., & Deng, G. (2015). Based on the theory of grey system to
forecast China’s business volume of express services. Modern
Economy, 6, 283-288. Retrieved from http://file.scirp.org/pdf/
ME_2015021215273351.pdf
Xin, K. R. (2002). Inside Chinese business: A guide for man-
agers worldwide. The Academy of Management Review,
27, 127-129. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/sta-
ble/4134374
Yang, Y. H., Hui, Y. V., Leung, L. C., & Chen, G. (2010). An ana-
lytic network process approach to the selection of logistics
service providers for air cargo. Journal of the Operational
Research Society, 61, 1365-1376. doi:10.1057/jors.2009.111
Zhongcheng, L. I. U., & Shiying, H. U. (2017). Study on the evalu-
ation index system of international competitiveness of Chinese
private express delivery enterprises. International Business
and Management, 14(3), 27-32. Retrieved from http://cscan
ada.net/index.php/ibm/article/view/9469
Farooq et al. 9
Zhu, X. H. (2014). Analysis of the human resource management
based on private express enterprise. Journal of Nanchang
College of Education. Retrieved from http://en.cnki.com.cn/
Article_en/CJFDTotal-LCYY201401041.htm
Author Biographies
Qamar Farooq is a visiting teacher of international students in fac-
ulty of business administration. He is affiliated with three academic
and research institutions of different countries. His major contribu-
tions are in the fields of CSR, Cross-Cultural Management and
employee motivation.
Peihua Fu is the professor at School of Management and
E-Business, ZJGSU, Hangzhou. His skills and expertise
include SCM, logistics, simulation modeling, inventory and
optimization.
Yunhong Hao is professor at School of Business Administration,
ZJGSU. He has served as Dean of SBA for ten years. His areas of
expertise include corporate social responsibility, corporate gover-
nance and business ethics. He has supervised many PhD scholars.
Tchamy Jonathan is a young PhD student at School of Management
and E-Business, ZJGSU. His interests include Financial SCM and
E-Commerce.
Yanni Zhang is PhD scholar and a teacher at School of Business
Administration, ZJGSU. Her research interests include political
capital, earnings transparency, general business management and
innovation management.