| As early as 100 years ago, American express market presents the oligopolistic market structure. The market structure is now the same as 100 years ago, but compared with 100 years ago, the market players——Express delivery enterprises which are entirely different have changed greatly. Along with the expansion, some of them have become the important new market players, such as United Parcel Service (UPS) and FedEx Express (FedEx). But some of them narrowed enterprise boundary. Some may even be eliminated, such as Railway Express Agency (REA). China’s express delivery industry began to develop since 1990s, although with only a short span of 20 years, the pace is remarkable. China leads the world in total express business volume in 2014. But the scale of express delivery enterprises in China is far too small compared with the world’s top four Courier companies (UPS, FedEx, DHL, and TNT). There are not internationally competitive large express delivery enterprises in our country. China express delivery industry is growing rapidly. Express delivery enterprises are expanding their scales. However, some succeeded, some failed. Under this background, studying the issue of express delivery enterprises’ boundary, finding the theory basis of enterprise boundary changes is of great significance.Existing literatures ignored the research on the boundary problem of express delivery enterprises. The direct relevant literature has the problems such as lacking of theoretical analysis and unscientific method of results analysis. The existing theory in explaining the express delivery enterprise boundary problem has limitations. In reality, the changes of express enterprises boundary are not consistent with theoretical analysis. The reason is that express delivery service has temporal and spatial attributes. Express delivery enterprises are different from the general productive ones. This paper puts forward the express enterprise boundary problem based on temporal and spatial attributes.The attributes can be divided into two aspects:time accessibility and spatial accessibility. The problem is studied from two aspects:organizational boundaries and size expansion of space network.Firstly, in order to explain the reason why some express delivery enterprises achieve success and failure with different organizational boundaries, this paper analyzed the time attribute of the express service products and constructed the analysis framework of express enterprises longitudinal boundary selection based on temporal attributes. This paper found that courier service’s temporal attribute affected the production and trading characteristics. Express delivery enterprises pay more attention to time cost savings in the process of "production". From microscopic perspective, the production and trading characteristics constitutes the internal cause of express enterprises choosing different boundaries. Express delivery enterprise boundary choice is the result of the interaction between production capacity and transaction costs. Furthermore, this paper analyzed how organizational boundaries of express delivery enterprises were determined by building a theoretical model. The results show that there is a time-critical value and companies will choose vertical integration when timeliness requirement is higher than the critical value. When the timeliness requirement is below the critical value, the boundary selection is associated with the intensity of express enterprise’s service. When express enterprise’s service is in a larger range, express delivery enterprises with low-productivity would choose the narrow boundaries by adopting outsourcing, while enterprises with high-productivity will choose vertical integration. When the timeliness requirement is below the critical value and express enterprise’s service is in a lower range, express delivery enterprises choose outsourcing. Further, from the perspective of long-term evolution, the enterprise boundary is in dynamic evolution process along with the external environment changes.Secondly, in order to explain the economic phenomenon of the world’s top four express delivery enterprise scale constantly expanding and seemingly without boundaries, this paper studied the network expansion mechanism combined geographical dispersion characteristics of the express delivery network distribution and flat characteristics of organization structure based on the general theory of the scale expansion of enterprises. The results show that due to the spatial accessibility of courier services, expansion is the internal requirement. Scale economies from transports and network, network effects and common management are the foundation of the express enterprise scale expansion. Three factors— Market demand, skill and management level which limit enterprise expansion was used to analyze the express delivery enterprises. We found that market demand mainly affected the economies of scale in various locations. Management level became a major consideration in scale expansion for express delivery enterprises. In addition, network expansion can break through the restriction of management organization cost under the support of information systems. Eventually, the spatial accessibility, economies of scale and network scale formed interactive evolution.Thirdly, on the basis of the Salop model, this paper analyzed the express delivery enterprise merger decision in external expansion of network scale after joining the factor of network scale. Analysis shows that the network size will affect corporate profit and express delivery service price, it also can affect the enterprise competitiveness and market structure. At the same time, the other who was not involved in the merger will also be influenced. In most cases, the effect is adverse. The degree of influence is related to enterprise size.Fourth, in order to prove the accuracy of the theoretical proposition and the effectiveness of the theoretical analysis framework, this paper took UPS as an example, investigating its evolution of firm boundaries and using the historical data, carrying on the empirical analysis to the cause of the enterprise change. Logical way of thinking and analysis results are as follows:In the process of business expansion, UPS around the timeliness of delivery service combined with the enterprise’s production and transaction costs and chose different organization in different areas to provide services. Also, UPS presents the dynamic boundary at different times with changing consumer demands. Input-output efficiency and the scale efficiency by DEA show that there was not obvious decrease in UPS’s efficiencies because of scale expansion in nearly 20 years. Correlation test of the size of the UPS suggests that network scale is associated with management cost. The volume, operating costs and income have the same change trend presenting a stable proportion relationship. The M&A process of UPS shows that M&A is a common way of UPS scale expansion.Finally, the theoretical analysis framework explained the enterprise boundaries’ variation of Chinese express delivery industry in the twenty years of evolution. Those successful express enterprises’boundary conforms to the express service timeliness requirements of products. Then if not, most of them fail just like Star Express. The result of DEA analysis of Chinese express delivery enterprises showed that the scale of economics caused by scale expansion lead to the efficiency increase of operation and restriction overcoming of management level. The express delivery industry in China has shown a trend of M&A.
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