Motor carriage is the backbone of supply chains and a major component of the U.S. economy. The industry has endured remarkable levels of external pressure over the last three decades, including major shifts in shipper expectations, volatility and uncertainty in factor markets and changing governmental regulations. These pressures continue to transform the industry. This dissertation examines the motor carrier industry from three distinct perspectives: as an economic agent, as a productive entity and as a principal to public safety.Essay 1 examines longitudinal change in industry-level aggregate inventories, linking inventory investment to prior-period changes in freight cost. A dynamic model is specified and, using economic indicators and time-series inventory data on forty-five industry sectors, polynomial distributed lags are estimated. The results show that aggregate inventories adjust in the directions expected under optimal lot size ordering, however these adjustments are protracted over several quarters.Essay 2 links the diversification of motor carrier production activities within the truckload and less-than-truckload segments to operational efficiency. The effect of output diversification on carrier utilization of productive resources is theorized to depend on the degree of interdependence among work flows. A panel is developed with five years of archival data and two-stage data envelopment analysis is used for estimation and theory testing. Results are consistent with theory but also suggest structural differences between carrier classes.Essay 3 draws on theories of organizational routines to link variability in motor carrier safety performance over time to longitudinal change in performance. A metaroutine, International Organization for Standardization 9000, is hypothesized to simultaneously reduce variability and catalyze change. A regulating effect on variability is supported by a four-year panel of federal safety data and is conditioned by a carrier’s average level of safety performance, such that unsafe carriers appear to benefit most from the metaroutine.
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