Carrier selection: Do shippers and carriers agree, or not?

Previous carrier selection studies involving both shipper and carrier perspectives have discovered numerous differences between shippers and carriers, at least in terms of mean score comparisons. However, analysis of the relative importance of the selection factors (not reported in previous studies) uniformly shows a high degree of similarity between shippers and carriers. A new shipper–carrier study, investigating a more specific selection (of truckload general freight carriers), discovered a similar dichotomy between the mean score and relative comparisons. The paper concludes by developing several research propositions and by offering suggestions for additional research.