The “Authorized Economic Operator” certification and firm performance

Abstract

The complexity of the international supply chain, diversity and increasing number of stakeholders requires a wider range of resources, knowledge, experience, skills and technology that private company can't alone possess. Moreover, after the increase of various threats and risks to international supply chains especially after the nine eleven, firms became more responsible and accountable to their respective government for providing specific information regarding the imported or exported products. Penalties for non-compliance can be severe and may result in fines, jail time or loss of markets. That's why we saw appear new configurations at the international supply chain that give more importance to certain non-profit public sector actors, such as Customs. This new form of cooperation and / or public - private partnership for example, through the status of the Authorized Economic Operator “AEO” increase the challenge of piloting and securing flows throughout the international supply chain. Based on the theory that achievement of an integrated international supply chain depends not only on the integration of private companies that form the links in this chain but also the other category of stakeholders such as customs of export country, customs of import country, border protection police, sanitary control authorities, the port authority, this work aims to develop new management ideas for the international supply chain. In fact the importance of international supply chain continues to increase with the globalization of the economy and the growth of international trade and consequently the risk and vulnerability. The purpose of this work is to study the impact of this new integration processes throughout the supply chain such as customs procedures facilitations and in particular through “AEO” certification for a continuous flow of goods and information in the global supply chain and by so to the competitively and performance of firms.