1.Only a limited number of cases from the 12 months of the dataset were analysed.
The dataset contained 4592 cases but only 668 cases were included in the sample due to time constraints. Between 50 and 70 cases were analysed for each month of the year.
This meant the sample size was 668 cases, whereas the dataset had 4592 cases in it, meaning only 14.5% of the dataset was used, making it difficult to generalise results.
2.Another limitation of the study was the narrow scope of prior research available on the research topic.
A number of pieces of different literature were authored by the same academics, however, where this occurred the researcher managed to find more generic pieces of literature on organised crime, as opposed to cargo theft specifically, that they were then able to compare and contrast with more specific sources.
For example, literature on Supply Chain Security in general, which was then turned into a theme for the literature Review.
A final limitation of this study was that in relation to the themes of seasonal variations and seasonality,
which was discussed considerably in the literature review, the dataset only gave the month of year of cargo thefts, so analysis and interpretation of this element of the literature was limited and could not be taken advantage of.
