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CONCLUSION
This survey indicates that transportation brokers are very satisfied in their career choice. When asked if they could start their careers over, would they still work as transportation brokers? 40.9 percent answered "definitely yes," and another 40.5 percent said "probably yes." Additionally, the transportation brokers indicated that they were pleased with their income levels. We next asked each respondent what is the greatest joy they received from being a transportation broker. By far the most common response - noted by almost half of the respondents - was the pleasure involved in using their creativity to solve customers' problems. Figure 6 presents a summary of the five commonly noted joys of being a transportation broker.
The brokers gave more diverse answers to the query about the single greatest frustration in their work. The most common problems noted were that there were not enough trucks available at times to meet customers' needs and that brokers are not always respected as professionals. Figure 7 is a summary of the eleven main points that frustrated transportation brokers.
We have two observations about the survey results: First, we were struck by the high percentage of transportation brokers that indicated that if they could start their careers over, they would stay brokers. We expect that there are few career areas that would be able to generate as much job satisfaction as was found in being a transportation broker. Thus, while this article examined both the joys and frustrations of being a transportation broker, the pleasures involved greatly outweighed the frustrations.
Second, the reason we became initially interested in transportation brokers was the brokerage "image" problem that we discovered in our survey of trucking company CEOs. As noted earlier, a few truckers called brokers "parasites" and the "curse" of the transportation industry.
In addition, the brokers in our survey indicated that they thought that a number of shippers also deem brokers unethical. We believe, based on our literature search, conversations with carriers and shippers over the past few years, and with our survey findings, that the image of transportation brokers is improving. Nevertheless, there still is an image problem, or it would not have been listed as a prominent frustration of transportation brokers. Remember, it was the second most frequently observed problem area, with almost 20 percent of the broker respondents stating it was the single greatest frustration to them in their career.
What can be done about the broker image problem? We believe the marketplace will eventually eliminate most of the problem brokers. Truckers do not have to be abused too frequently before they will stop using the services of the dishonest brokers. Inexperienced shippers are a bigger conundrum, because they are so numerous, and many are not sophisticated about the transportation alternatives available in the deregulated and downsized environment. If these shippers have one or two bad experiences with transportation brokers, they may conclude that all brokers are dishonest and decide to no longer consider using the services of any transportation broker. To correct this situation, we believe that an educational campaign, perhaps sponsored by the Transportation Brokers Conference of America, is the solution. The purpose of the educational campaign would be to instruct shippers on how to locate an ethical transportation broker. Thus, shippers would be instructed to ask the broker who is soliciting their business to provide the following: (a) a copy of his or her ICC license; (b) a copy of his or her insurance certificate; and (c) a list of shipper references who can vouch for the integrity of the broker involved. If more shippers would follow these simple suggestions, the great majority of the unethical transportation brokers would soon be out of business.
ENDNOTES
1 James C. Johnson and Kenneth C. Schneider. "A Decade After the 1980 Motor Carrier Act: Trucking Company CEOs Discuss Surprises and Speculations," Transportation Quarterly (July 1990), p. 353.
2 For an excellent overview of the activities of transportation brokers, see: Terence A. Brown, Transportation Brokers: History, Regulation and Operations (Alexandria, VA: Transportation Brokers Conference of America, 1992).
3 See Terence A. Brown, "Size and Operating Characteristics of Property Brokers," Transportation Journal (Summer 1990), pp. 52-57.
4 Interstate Commerce Commission, Ex Parte 39962 (1986) as found in Greg Stachura, "Licensed Property Brokers Providing A Value Added-As Needed," Council of Logistics Management Annual Conference Proceedings (Vol. 11, 1991), p. 333.
5 Terence A. Brown, Transportation Brokers: History, Regulation and Operations, p. 9. The ICC makes no distinction between general commodity and household goods brokers - both need a license issued by the ICC and both are classified as "property brokers." After the 1935 Motor Carrier Act was passed, the ICC issued relatively few property brokers licenses. This was because the Commission's administrative rules and policies governing the issuance of property brokerage licenses were so restrictive that it greatly discouraged applicants from applying for licenses. It is estimated that in 1970 there were fewer than twelve active general commodity freight brokers in the U.S. Thus, when the ICC stated that there were seventy property brokers in 1975, the great majority of them were household goods brokers. Today, the number of household goods brokers is a relatively small number of the over 8,000 brokers licensed by the ICC. For additional information on the regulatory history of property brokers, see Brown, Transportation Brokers: History, Regulation and Operations, pp. 4-5.
6 Donald V. Harper, "The Federal Motor Carrier act of 1980: Review and Analysis," Transportation Journal (Winter 1980), p. 16.
7 Harper, pp. 8-10.
8 Interstate Commerce Commission Annual Report (1975), p. 120.
9 Interstate Commerce Commission Annual Report (1993), p. 113.
10 Interstate Commerce Commission Annual Report (1993), p. 47.
11 See Eric N. Berkowitz, et. al., Marketing, 4th ed. (Burr Ridge: IL: Richard D. Irwin, Inc., 1994), chapter 19.
12 Outsourcing of the traffic function, primarily utilized by smaller firms that could not afford the cost of transportation specialists, has been a common practice historically. See Donald V. Harper, Transportation in America: Users, Carriers, Government (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1978), p. 75. The use of third parties to provide logistics services for their clients is a newer trend than outsourcing the traffic function. One of the earliest discussions of logistics outsourcing is Walter F. Friedman, "Physical Distribution: The Concept of Shared Ideas," Harvard Business Review (March-April 1975), pp. 24-36ff.
13 See Robert C. Lieb, "The Use of Third-Party Logistics Services by Large American Manufacturers," Journal of Business Logistics (Vol. 13, No. 2, 1992), pp. 29-42; Joseph E. McKeon, "Outsourcing Begins In-House," Transportation & Distribution (September 1991), pp. 25-28; E.J. Muller, "A Defining Moment for Contract Logistics," Distribution (July 1993), pp. 64-69; E.J. Muller, "Contract Logistics Finds Slow Going," Distribution (July 1991), pp. 59-60; E.J. Muller, "How to Profit Using Third Parties," Distribution (May 1991), pp. 29-38; E.J. Muller, "The Top Guns of Third-Party Logistics," Distribution (March 1993), pp. 30-38; Helen L. Richardson, "Third Party Logistics: Economy Spurs Growth in Outsourcing," Transportation & Distribution (March 1993), pp. 45-47; and Phillip C. Yeager, "Third Party Services Keep Getting Better," Transportation & Distribution (January 1993), p. 34.
14 See Terence A. Brown, "Size and Operating Characteristics of Property Brokers" Transportation Journal (Summer 1990), pp. 52-57; and Michael R. Crum, "The Expanded Role of Motor Freight Brokers in the Wake of Regulatory Reform," Transportation Journal (Summer 1985), pp. 5-15.
15 See Tom Andel, "Don't Gamble With Brokers," Transportation & Distribution (August 1991), pp. 25-27; Fritz R. Kahn, "Get It In Writing," Distribution (September 1991), pp. 71-72; John D. Schulz, "New Rules for Brokers to Weed Out 'Bad Apples' May Be Coming Soon, Top ICC Official Says," Traffic World (February 28, 1994), pp. 45-46; and M. Scott Watson, "Shippers, Load Brokers, and Carriers: 'Who Bears the Loss When the Load Broker Defaults?'," Transportation Practitioners Journal (Fall 1992), pp. 29-32.
16 See Gwen R. Bachmann, James C. Johnson, and Kenneth C. Schneider, "The 1980 Motor Carrier Act Ten Years Later: Do Trucking Company CEOs Love it or Hate It?" Transportation Practitioners Journal (Winter 1990), pp. 163-186; Terence A. Brown, "Freight Brokers and General Commodity Trucking," Transportation Journal (Winter 1984), pp. 4-14; Terence Brown, "Producer Owned Truck Brokerage," Journal of Transportation Management (Vol. 3, No. 1, 1991), pp. 13-29; Terence A. Brown, "Property Brokers: A Pilot Study of Carriers' Perspectives," Transportation Journal (Winter 1990), pp. 32-39; Michael R. Crum and Benjamin J. Allen, "The Changing Nature of the Motor Carrier-Shipper Relationship: Implications for the Trucking Industry," Transportation Journal (Winter 1991), pp. 40-54; and John D. Schulz, "Growth Predicted for Private Fleets Despite New Trends To Outsourcing," Traffic World (May 18, 1992), pp. 25-26.
17 See Terence A. Brown, "Property Brokers: A Pilot Study of Shipper Perspectives," Transportation Journal (Fall 1991), pp. 45-50; Michael R. Crum and Benjamin J. Allen, "Motor Freight Transport Third Party Service: Shipper and Carrier Perspectives," Transportation Practitioners Journal (Fall 1992), pp. 37-58; Michael R. Crum and Benjamin J. Allen, "Shipper EDI, Carrier Reduction, and Contracting Strategies: Impacts on the Motor Carrier Industry," Transportation Journal (Summer 1990), pp. 18-32; James P. Rakowski, R. Neil Southern, and Judith L. Jarrell, "The Changing Nature of the U.S. Trucking Industry: Implications for Logistics Managers," Journal of Business Logistics (Vol. 14, No. 1, 1993), pp. 111-130; and Yosef Sheffi, "Third Party Logistics: Present and Future Prospects," Journal of Business Logistics (Vol. 11, No. 2, 1990), pp. 27-39.
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