随着全球生产网络和现代物流研究的兴起,物流对于提升地区和企业的竞争力具有举足轻重的地位和作用。现阶段的物流研究主要集中于管理学和交通地理学2个学科。管理学侧重于研究物流组织和企业物流效率的提高,缺乏整体和空间的视角,而交通地理学则侧重于以货物流通为代表的传统物流研究,对于现代供应链及物流组织研究不够,二者各有研究优势和不足。经济地理学对物流活动的研究经历了传统物流活动研究、物流活动被遗忘、物流研究的被重新认识和发现3个阶段。在当今经济地理学"社会、制度、文化转向"背景下,经济地理学将在日益复杂的现代物流网络研究中发挥重要的作用,现代物流活动的相关研究,主要是由交通地理学者借鉴经济地理学理论对物流活动进行的研究,及经济地理学者对生产领域研究时对物流活动不经意的涉及,研究方向主要包括:全球生产网络下现代物流的性质和作用,现代物流组织结构研究,现代物流活动的空间表现及发展动力机制4个领域,总体而言尚处于研究起步阶段。最后,文章提出了对当代中国经济地理学对物流活动研究的几点启示。
As the rise of global production networks(GPNs),modern logistics is playing a more and more important role for improving the competing capability of regions and companies.Yet,with a few exceptions,goods movement and freight distribution are widely underrepresented in geographical researches.This paper provides an overview of the emerging logistics research from an economic geographical perspective.Three phases can be divided according to the development of modern logistics research in geographical science.This paper emphasizes the apprehensiveness of modern economic geographical theories as useful analytic tools for the modern logistics research.This paper concludes four main research themes of geographical researches about the logistics:the attribute of logistics activities and its role in the emerging GPNs,the organizational structures of modern logistics,the spatial configuration of logistics activities and the dynamic mechanism of evolution.In general,logistics is a developing branch school from the economic geographical perspective.The paper ends with the personal constructive suggestions of the authors to improve current Chinese logistics researches from the economic geographical perspective.