Development of Reverse Logistics – Adaptability and Transferability

The increasing enforcement of take-back laws and the changing requirements of external environments, e.g. shorter lifecycle products, increasing customer demands, and growing electronic retailing and catalogues, have made both producers and distributors in the European industry face the challenges of managing returned and discarded products that relate to reverse logistics. In particular, manufacturers of electrical and electronic equipment have to perform the completely new tasks of collecting their products put on the market at the end-of-life and providing an appropriate recovery program at no charge. This study investigates the adaptability to reverse logistics in the European electronics industry and the transferability of reverse logistics management models from European countries to Vietnam at firm and network level. This study conducted survey methodology, content analysis of published case studies, and in-depth interview with firms to investigate the adaptability and transferability. This study made some academic contributions towards enriching the applications of the organizational theories in the specialized field of reverse supply chain management. Moreover, this study also contributed to some managerial implications for producers, distributors, service providers, and policy makers to improve reverse logistics performance at both firm and network level.