Fleet Managers and Their Environment: A Survey

It is perhaps among the folklore of modern fleet management that fleet managers work in an increasingly complex work environment, are appreciated relatively less by their peers than other managers, seem to have come a long way toward professionalism, and find it increasingly necessary to use a wider range of techniques and services, such as those often provided by fleet leasing companies. The NAFA Survey Project at the University of Pittsburgh, funded under a grant from the NAFA Foundation, has sought to examine these and other observations about the environment of fleet management that seems to prevail.

Even if the folklore proves valid, we still do not understand the key details and dynamics of these important features of everyday fleet management. How complex is fleet management perceived to be? Do fleet managers really feel underappreciated by their management peers? Do they perceive, however, that top management understands their situation? Is the professionalism of fleet managers similar to that exhibited in other true professions? How dependent are fleet managers on services provided by fleet leasing companies? Are fleet managers satisfied with the ser vices they get from such companies?

Only through an understanding of the particular environment of fleet management can we move toward the development of better managerial tools for the area. If we understand how fleet managers in general interact with their environment, we can, conceivably, pre­scribe improvements useful not just in one, but in many organizational settings. We may discover, for example, that only a few parts of a complex environment actually produce the most problems; this can lead us to focus remedial action in this area. Or if fleet management is indeed taking the path followed by other professions, we can apply what has been learned about the behavior and management of professionals to improve the situation  of fleet personnel.

Fleet managers inhabit what organization theorists call "boundary- spanning roles"; they, like purchasing agents, sales personnel, and public affairs specialists, among others, conduct the organization's relationships with the components of its environment. This is a key organizational role that has received a great deal of recent attention in the academic literature. If fleet managers act, like other boundary-spanning personnel, as important agents of the organization, we can learn a lot relevant to management in the area from looking explicitly at how they fulfill this role. Our questionnaire, therefore, was designed specifically around the concept that much can be learned from thinking about the ways in which fleet managers act as boundary-spanning agents.

The Survey

A questionnaire designed to explore the topics discussed above was sent to half the membership of the National Association of Fleet Administrators in the spring of 1983. The sample was selected from NAFA's mailing list, with 666 questionnaires sent to every other name on the list (beginning with a flip of a coin). The questionnaire was long and complex, with over 400 "variables" (i.e., response blanks). In spite of this, we received 200 responses, or 30 percent. This is considered a high rate of return for a single mailing of this type and itself probably reflects a dimension of professionalism among the respondents. We are very grateful to the respondents for their work. We are reporting here some results from a tabulation of the frequency distributions (i.e., percentages) of the responses. The results of more complex statistical analyses performed on the data will be reported in future papers.

A Snapshot of Fleet Manager

The 200 respondents represented organizations ranging in size from 13 to 325,000 employees, with a median size of 3,000 employees. Private sector organizations composed 77.5 percent of the sample, with Government agencies (national, fate, and local), not for profit agencies, and educational institutions represented among the remainder of the sample. Fleets similarly displayed a wide range, with the median number of automobiles at 270 (range 15 to 7,200) and of trucks and other vehicles at, 110 (range zero to 10,000). Organizational size as measured by last years sales (or budget, for nonprofit agencies) ranged from less  than $1 million to over $5 billion,  with the median falling at, almost, $250 million.

Respondents themselves were 76 percent male (N - 152). Of (he 191 respondents who reported nationality, 89.5 percent wore located in the United States and 10.5 percent in Canada. Respondent fleet managers ranged in age from under 25 years (only 2 percent) to over 61 years (8.7 percent), with a median  age category (among 196 reporting) of 41 to 45 years. Salaries ranged from $15,000 to over $50,000, reflecting the vast, array of managerial titles and positions accounting for the fleet management function in respondent organizations. Frequency distributions for some of the fleet managers' personal characteristics are shown.

The Internal and External Constituencies of Fleet Managers 

To understand the sources of complexity in the environment of fleet management, we need to identify the parts of that environment and how they relate to fleet managers. The questionnaire listed 18 internal constituencies (e.g., accounting, sales) and 20 external constituencies (e.g., auto dealers, fleet leasing companies), it asked respondents about the perceived frequency of constituencies.

As we would expect, fleet managers do not interact with, experience problems from, or perceive the importance of (or change in the importance of) each constituency equally. Relatively few constituencies in each case proved to be key ones.

Who do fleet managers interact with most inside their organization? Of the 18 internal constituencies listed on the questionnaire, fleet managers reported five cases in which contacts were "frequent" or "very frequent" in 40 percent or more of the sample. These constituencies were purchasing, sales/ marketing, accounting, finance/ treasurer, and vehicle maintenance. Most, often reported were contacts with accounting (70.3 percent). Insurance, claims, personnel, operations/production, president/CEO, and the general manager were in frequent contact with a substantial minority of respondents (23.7 to 34.1 percent). Least frequently reported were contacts with internal security, engineering, public relations/public affairs, support services, Board of Directors, government relations, and general counsel (range 1.2 percent to 18.5 percent).

Which are considered the most important constituencies of fleet managers within the organization, and which constituencies are thought to have changed in importance recently?

Over half of the respondents rated the following internal constituencies as important or very important: accounting (61.3 percent), finance/treasurer (54.5 percent), President/CEO (60.5 percent), general manager (53.4 percent) and vehicle maintenance (64.6 percent). Government relations and public relations/public affairs were seen as having relatively little importance to fleet management functions, and the other internal constituencies were rated as important by a moderate number of respondents. Interestingly, only vehicle maintenance was seen as having increased substantially in importance over the past 10 years (41.8 percent of respondents). Most of the other internal constituencies seem more important now to only a relatively small proportion of respondents, and few fleet managers perceive that any of these constituencies have declined in importance over time.

Who do fleet managers interact with most outside their organization?

It is not surprising that the external constituencies with which fleet managers are most involved are precisely those most closely connected to vehicle sales and services. Over half the sample reported frequent or very frequent contact with a fleet leasing company (60 percent), auto manufacturers (52.3 percent), and auto dealers (51.8 percent). These were followed closely by contract mechanics (44.8 percent), NAFA (38.9 percent), parts vendors (36.3 percent), and insurance companies (32.8 percent). Most fleet managers report having little or no contact with public utility commissions, unions, or governmental revenue departments. An interesting finding here is that over half of respondent fleet managers reported frequent or occasional con­tact with local, state, or federal regulatory agencies (including transportation departments). It is becoming commonplace in business that government relations is now a generic management function, not a specialized staff function; this finding offers support for the wisdom of this approach.

Who are the most frequent sources of trouble for fleet managers from outside the organization?

Most of the external constituencies listed are occasionally sources of trouble for fleet managers, but none seems to present overwhelmingly frequent difficulties. Those constituencies with the highest frequency of contact are also those most often rated as frequent sources of problems: contract mechanics (27.2 percent), auto dealers (26.9 percent), auto manufacturers (26.4 percent), and fleet leasing companies (22.7 percent). Although almost 40 percent of respondents are in frequent contact with the National Association of Fleet Administrators, it was reported as a frequent source of problems by only seven individuals (3.6 percent - computerized mailing list snafus, perhaps).

Who are considered the most important constituencies of fleet managers outside the organization, and which constituencies are thought to have changed in importance recently?

Over half the sample considered the following external constituencies to be important or very important to satisfactory performance of the fleet management function: auto manufacturers, auto dealers, fleet leasing companies, contract mechanic, and insurance companies. Parts vendors and NAFA are considered to be important by more than 40 percent of the respondents.

Four constituencies were rated as having increased in importance over time by a large minority of respondents: fleet leasing companies (38.5 percent), NAFA (38.2 percent), auto manufacturers (38.1 percent), and auto dealers (29.2 percent). Contract mechanics, parts vendors, fuel suppliers, and insurance companies were not far behind, with about 20 to 24 percent of the sample perceiving their importance to have increased over 10 years.

The results suggest an interesting hypothesis about complexity in the fleet manager's environment. If the environment of fleet management has grown more complex and more difficult to manage, perhaps it is not because new constituencies have joined the field - as is often the case with other managerial specialties - but because relations with traditional constituencies have themselves become more com­ plicated.

Perceptions of Complexity and the Relationship of Fleet Managers to Their Organizations

Besides asking fleet managers directly about their interaction frequency, problem source dependence, and change of perceptions with respect to particular internal and external constituencies, the questionnaire also inquired about some general qualities of the fleet managers' relationships to their organizations. Respondents were asked to agree/disagree with a series of attitudinal statements. These concerned complexity and change in the job and the environment, the importance and status of the job of fleet management within the organization, and other aspects that we shall address later.

Complexity in the environment is defined in may ways by organizational researchers. We have defined it in terms of the number of internal and external constituencies in the fleet manager's environment, the frequency of interaction with constituencies, turbulence in the environment (i.e., the number and rapidity of changes in the environment), and certain aspects of the quality of interactions with the environment. Greater sophistication in the information exchanges with the environment and their evaluation would be a mark of higher complexity. This aspect would, for example, characterize higher levels of professionalization. Thus we have included some measures of professional behavior partly as an aid in understanding the complexity of the environment of fleet managers. We shall report on the professionalism results later.

As part of our assessment of perceptions of complexity, managers were asked to respond to the statement, "My job as a fleet manager requires me to deal with a great many outside groups and individuals in my organizations out­side environment." Almost three- fourths of the total sample (149, or 74.5 percent) agreed or strongly agreed with this statement. Most respondents (80.5 percent) agreed that "fleet management is a very complicated job." Respondents were evenly split on the relative importance of external and internal factors affecting their job; 36 percent agreed and 36.5 percent disagreed with the statement that. "In general, my job is more strongly affected by what happens in the outside world than by what happens inside the organization."Although  respondents saw their jobs and the  environment as complex, they did  not report, on the whole, much difficulty in understanding the environment (57.5 percent agreed that  they had little trouble understanding the environment), and 55 per­cent of them agreed that constant demands keep the job from being as simple as it should be. A large majority of respondents (78 percent) agreed with the statement, "Fifteen years ago, the organization's external environment was much less complex than it is today."

"Objective" turbulence is and will remain a theoretical construct; obviously, the environment of any manager is changing all the time and it would be difficult if not impossible to count accurately the number of actual changes and the speed with which they occurred. What is vitally important, however, is the manager's perceptions of environmental change (number and speed of changes) as well as the manager's perceptions of his or her ability to understand and cope with changes in the environment.

Seventy percent of respondents disagreed with the statement, "outside factors that are important to this job really don't change much," and 68 percent agreed that "15 years ago, the organization's external environment was such that it took less expertise to manage the fleet." Clearly, fleet managers perceive their environment to be quite turbulent. They are mixed, however, in their perceived ability to understand and deal with such turbulence: 43 percent agreed that "things change so fast in this work that it is hard to keep up-to-date," and 37.5 percent agreed that "the outside environment these days seems almost completely unpredictable."

Besides complexity, questions in­quired about the fleet's importance to its organization and respondents' perceptions of how highly valued and understood their function was by other organizational members. Sixty-nine percent, of respondents agreed that "this organization could not survive without its fleet," indicating the vital importance; of fleet, management functions to organizational health. Three questions, however, indicated that, fleet management is poorly understood and appreciated by others in the organization: 65 percent agreed that "most people don't; realize how important the fleet is to them"; 77.5 percent agreed that "most people in the organization don't understand what fleet management is all about"; and 64 percent agreed that "most people in this organization don't realize that the fleet manager's job is a difficult one." Now, "most people" is a phrase that encompasses a lot of employees who have little or nothing to do with the fleet; it may not be surprising that "most people" in the organization do not understand or value the fleet manager's job. One would expect, however, that: senior executives would respect: and highly value the fleet, management function, but only 46 percent of our respondents agreed with this statement.

Three questions were aimed at discovering fleet management's relative status within the organization. These questions asked respondents to agree or disagree with these statements: "Compared to other managers in this organization with responsibilities similar to mine, my job is at: a higher level, any salary is higher, I have greater access to top management." Very few fleet managers felt their jobs were at a higher level (21.5 percent: agreed) or that their salaries were higher (10.5 percent agreed). On the third question, however, fully 57.5 percent felt that they had greater access to top management than did their peers with comparable responsibilities. This result could reflect the increasing costs in the area and the increasingly problematic environment in which this important: function operates.

It is therefore apparent that at least part of the common folklore of fleet management is shared among fleet managers: the fleet managers themselves feel under-appreciated and poorly understood by peers and superiors even while the key nature of their jobs is requiring greater perceived access to top managers. Of course, we did not direct these questions also to a sample of non fleet managers, and we cannot know whether all managers tend to feel this way. Perceptions of such things as job level and salary of peers may, however, be based on good information in many organizations; the fleet managers' perceptions could be well-founded.

Professionalism of Fleet Managers

Organization theorists distinguish between occupations and professions on the grounds that the latter encompass a specialized body of knowledge, enjoy some external recognition or certification of professional status (which often re­quires special training), serve as means for identifying and interacting with peers in other organizational and geographic locations, have a great deal of autonomy, and subscribe to a code of ethics (or norms of service). Overall, fleet managers reported substantial autonomy in making decisions in a variety of fleet areas and clearly indicated a perceived sense of professionalism.

Fully 91 percent agreed that fleet management has a special body of knowledge, and 76 percent agreed that fleet managers must know many things that other managers don't need to know. Fleet managers do tend to have general academic training, mostly in business; we do not, however, have comparable figures for other managers. A great majority (88.5 percent) of respondents had completed some college, and 54.5 percent held undergraduate degrees. Twenty percent had accomplished some graduate-level work or had graduate degrees. Of the 107 college graduates, 51.4 per­cent earned degrees in business ad­ministration or a specialty such as accounting, marketing, or finance.  The other degrees ranged very broadly across liberal arts disciplines, social and physical sciences, and professional areas of study.

Almost all respondents keep up with NAFA's newsletter and other NAFA publications (91.2 percent and 89.2 percent, respectively, reported "frequent participation on these two items"), indicating both attention to a possibly specialized body of knowledge and the outreach to one's peers that characterizes professionals. Indeed, respondent fleet managers have a fairly high overall participation level in the activities of NAFA (a possible bias in the sample, of course, since we used the NAFA mailing list). Many respondents are active in other professional associations as well. A substantial minority- about 46 percent in both cases- attend the annual meeting frequently or attend local or regional chapter meetings. Fewer respondents attend special training programs or regional seminars frequently (28.2 percent and 20.9 percent, respectively). Seventy-two percent thought that fleet managers should have special training, but only 37 percent of respondents were neutral or did not answer this question.

The fleet manager's autonomy within the organization was ad­dressed explicitly by asking respondents to agree or disagree with the statement, "I have a great deal of control over..." various aspects of fleet management. It is clear that the majority of respondents feel that they have considerable control over all the important categories of decisions concerning fleet management functions, but that the number of managers with such control decreases considerably in areas having to do with budgeting and capital expenditures. Overall, 66.5 percent of respondents agreed that "as things are now, I feel that I have enough power to make decisions and implement them to administer the fleet effectively."

Norms of service (a concept with the ethical connotation of having a professional responsibility to fulfill some set of obligations) were quite strong among respondent fleet managers. Over 77 percent agreed that "a fleet manager's primary responsibility is to provide service to his or her employer," and 69 per­ cent agreed that "a fleet manager's primary responsibility is to provide service to fleet users." Obviously, neither of these groups - employers and fleet users - are seen as having priority; norms of service apply to both almost equally.

It is thus no wonder that over three-fourths of the sample (76 percent) agreed with the statement, "I wouldn't hesitate to call myself a professional fleet manager." Fleet managers exhibit at least the self- perception of an emerging profession, though support for formal certification seems as yet mixed.

If fleet managers behave as well as look like professionals, we may expect to see some of the behavioral patterns that can characterize professionals in general. Professionalization may help to develop and sustain high levels of service quality. Emphasis on a distinct body of knowledge and special training needs can lead to better preparation for fleet management and support for expansion of the knowledge base. Innovations developed by members of the profession outside a particular organization may be quick to spread the organization through contacts in professional association. Professional norms, apart from the particular reward system in any given organization, can help determine the quality of job performance.

As the academic literature makes clear, however, professionalization can bring problems as well as bene­fits. Professional ties can sometimes mean excessive independence of the needs of the particular organization in which a practitioner works; there can be a tug-of-war between alliance to the company's policies and to professional prescriptions. Certification can mean both attainment of some level of professional achievement and the discouragement of levels yet higher. It can also mean the creation of entry barriers to aspirants to the profession, much as bar and medical exams limit the number of lawyers and physicians. These may be issues that the emerging profession of fleet management can expect to face in the coming years.

Trends in the Control of Fleets and the Use of Fleet Services

The increasing complexity and other changes in the environment of fleet management have brought with them changes in aspects of the control of fleets and the use of fleet services.

Fleet managers are now increasingly employed full-time at fleet management. Two-thirds of the respondents are full-time fleet managers with no substantial responsibilities in non-fleet-related areas. Among the one-third who  have other major duties, many are involved with budget and credit card administration, and a smaller proportion are responsible for physical plant maintenance, janitorial services, travel and moving  arrangements, printing, and insurance. Only 12 respondents indicated that secretarial services were among their primary responsibilities.

Just about half have held their fleet manager's jobs for less than five years; only 16.7 percent of respondents have been in their cur rent jobs for more than 10 years. These findings suggest a good deal of mobility to and from the fleet manager's position in respondent organizations. Among respondents, the median number of years worked altogether was 16 to 20. Fleet management, it seems, is a function entrusted primarily to mature individuals who have gained considerable work experience in some non-fleet area.

As expected, there is no standard organizational location for the fleet management function. Our respondents reported being located in a wide variety of departments or organizational units. Almost 20 percent said that fleet management was located within the general manager's purview, and from there the responses were quite widely dispersed.

The survey sought to ascertain the effects of a few recent developments in fleet composition, including downsizing and increased purchase of "loaded down" vehicles. Most fleet managers acknowledge that larger, more expensive automobiles with many options typically are used as rewards or perquisites of senior positions: 67 percent of respondents agreed that "in this organization, employees in higher positions are entitled to use larger, fancier, more valuable fleet vehicles." A potential source of difficulty for fleet managers appeared, however: 70 percent of respondents indicated that "most users prefer larger, more powerful automobiles," but 81 percent also stated that they had deliberately down sized fleet vehicles over the past 10 years.

Several questions provided some interesting insights to relationships between options, type of use, and fleet vehicle maintenance. Respondents did not, believe that users will take better care of "loaded down" vehicles -only 17.5 percent agreed with this statement. Respondents did agree (53.5 percent) that fleet users who carry important customers take better care of their cars, and a substantial minority (45 percent) noted that users who were able to choose options they wanted tended to take better care of their vehicles. On the other hand, respondents agreed for the most  part that "loaded down" vehicles (with many options) were easier to  resell (66.5 percent agreed with this  statement), and that such vehicles were likely to bring higher resale prices (52.5 percent agreed).

These questions begin to address the difficult question of control of fleet users. Given high initial costs, the need to preserve resale; value, and the need to avoid expensive maintenance and ensure reliability, most fleet mangers would prefer that their vehicles be treated as if  driven around the block twice a year  by little old schoolteachers. Since this is unlikely, fleet managers must pay attention to the incentive system that encourages (or discourages) fleet users from taking' care of their vehicles. Study of that incentive system and the ways in which it can be manipulated by fleet managers could be of direct managerial benefit. Our present study only looked tentatively at a few of these issues; future work may examine if in more depth.

Among the changes in fleet operations that, we examined was the recent increased uses of certain services of fleet, leasing companies. As expected, wide, use of fleet leasing companies was reported with 55.5 percent of respondents, indicating that their organization had made use of fleet leasing company within the past year. We did ask several questions of those who had not used a fleet leasing company with in the past year. Among those who responded, 29 said that their organization had used a leasing company within the past five years (which constituted 14.5 percent of respondents who had not used a leasing company in the past year). Only 18 non-users felt that their organizations would use a fleet leasing company within the next year or two.

We also asked questions concerning fleet-related services, how they are provided, and the degree of satisfaction with service provision for those respondents who reported using a fleet leasing company. Open-ended leases are much more likely to be provided by these companies than are closed-ended ones; 13.7 percent, of respondents participate in closed-ended leases, compared with 52.5 percent who participate in open-ended leases. Fleet leasing companies were less likely to have provided fleet purchasing services, open-ended leasing, fleet management services, maintenance programs, disposal services, regulatory assistance, and publications five years ago than now. Only closed-ended leases were more common five years ago.

Among those respondents using the services, the potential loss of several services was seen as posing considerable hardships. Such services included fleet purchasing, open-ended leasing, fleet management services, fleet disposal, and regulatory assistance (between 30.6 and 41.7 percent of respondents indicated that withdrawal of these services would be a considerable hardship). Fleet leasing company users tend to be satisfied, on the, whole, with the services they receive. Service areas that might bear' watching in the future, however, include fleet management services (16.4 percent sometimes or rarely satisfied), maintenance programs (13.2 percent sometimes or rarely satisfied), and regulatory assistance (11.1 percent sometimes or rarely satisfied).

Fleet leasing companies have clearly expanded their services from basic to leasing' to a portfolio of services needed across the life of (he vehicle. For many companies those special services have become quite important, in the complex environment developing in fleet, management. One future question for study would be the contingencies that indicate when such services should be purchased rather than provided in-house. When should our boundary-spanning fleet managers reach into the external environment to find new agents for the organization, such as fleet leasing companies?

Conclusion

Although few definitive statements can be made about the nature of fleet management or its environment on the basis of the frequency distributions compiled so far, several interesting findings have emerged from this portion of the NAFA Survey Project.

A striking finding is that the fleet management environment, described by respondents as seeming very complex (and much more complex than it used to be), does not have very many constituencies in it. Out of our list of 38 infernal and external constituencies, respondents focused on no more that a dozen in terms of frequency of interaction, frequency of problems, and importance to the fleet management function. This suggests, perhaps, that the environmental configurations of fleet management have become more complicated not because new constituencies are added to the field, but because relations among constituencies have themselves grown more complex.

While the descriptive results of the study are interesting in themselves, they also begin to suggest ways in which improved knowledge of fleet management can be developed. By identifying key constituencies, we can better focus efforts to improve relationships with them. By understanding the nature and sources of complexity in the job and environment of fleet management we can more easily develop means of coping with it. By being sensitive to the dimensions and behavior of professionalism among fleet managers we can more readily take ad­vantage of its benefits and perhaps avoid its negative features. By tracking trends in fleet control methods and service provision by fleet leasing companies we can begin to identify the contingencies that tell us when fleet managers should adopt certain control means or rely on outside service provisions. It certainly helps to convert the folklore of everyday conversation to the grounded details of a firmer understanding of fleet management.