Market knowledge’s impact on global trade channel design and logistics outsourcing: European companies targeting the Chinese food and beverage market

The present study aims at investigating the influence of market knowledge on designing global trade channels as well as setting the relationships with LSPs, from the perspective of European companies targeting the Chinese food and beverage market. Case study analysis offered different contributions. On one side, in line with the extant literature it was confirmed that increasing market knowledge allows for a higher commitment to the market. On the other side it emerged that, as market knowledge increases, companies tend to internalise logistics decisions - initially fully outsourced to a single LSP - by directly choosing specialised players.