Mechanisms for the control of transnational shipping corporations

The author presents a model of the conflicts that arise in the transnational shipping industry with special emphasis on control alternatives during entry into shipping operations. He concludes that, since transnational shipping is a non-zero sum game, gains can be created for world shipping as a whole.     

跨国海运公司的经营战略与上海国际航运中心的建设取向

本世纪８０、９０年代崛起的跨国海运公司是当前及可预见未来的世界航运主角，其全球性经营战略的走势，将在很大程度上对世界航运业的发展格局发挥重要的作用，亦将对上海国际航运中心的建设产生深远的影响。对世界上一些著名跨国海运公司的经营战略进行了考察，并就其中具有共性的要点作出了初步的归纳，即：海运航线主干化和全球化，营销网络自营化和当地化，运输工具大型化，物流系统综合化，管理技术信息化和竞争对手联营化。作者指出，鉴于跨国海运公司上述的经营战略要点，上海国际航运中心在建设取向上，一开始就要充分考虑到如何主动顺应这一世界航运业发展的新趋势。换言之，即从现在起，就必须在港。规范科学化、海运辅助服务系统化和航运管理现代化等几个主要方面大作文章，妥为规划，预谋良策。基于此种认识，从宏观的角度提出了一些相应的论证和建议，以供有关方面作为决策参考。     

海运业跨国经营投资区域选择研究

建立了海运业跨国经营投资区域选择的层次分析模型,应用了Delphi、AHP、FUZZY综合评价方法来选择海运业跨国经营投资区域。     

Transnational corporations; problems for study in the new international order of maritime shipping

This paper examines what is becoming the new order of maritime shipping, the transnational corporation. By combining the flags of convenience with crews of convenience, these corporations have become entiitcs with an existence above and beyond the nation-state in which they operate. Factors contributing to and problems resulting from this maritime structure are discussed. Possible resons for scholarly neglect of this area in the U.S.A. are suggested.     

关于提升天津港东疆保税港区集装箱业务竞争力的探讨

集装箱物流是吸引制造业资本跨国转移的重要条件,是港口城市参与国际经济大循环的有效途径,已成为促进港口城市经济发展的重要动力.世界各主要经济体都十分关注本国外贸港口在国际集装箱运输中的地位和作用,近年来国际集装箱运输市场的不断成熟为港口集装箱业务带来了前所未有的机遇和挑战.基于对国际集装箱运输市场发展趋势的分析,探讨影响港口集装箱业务竞争力的因素和天津港东疆保税港区发展集装箱业务的竞争优势,为制定提升东疆保税港区集装箱业务竞争力的策略提供建议.     

The Nigerian shipping industry and indigenous shipping companies

The shipping industry in Nigeria since the early 1990s has been experiencing a continuous disastrous downturn. Nigerian shipping companies' participation in international shipping has continued to be very limited. Their presence and impact is hardly felt in the world's shipping industry. Both the national carriers (that is shipping companies with national carrier status) and other indigenous private shipping companies have vessel as well as management problems. These problems have led to the poor performance of the Nigerian shipping industry for over a decade now. The carriers in the industry are not attaining for the country the gains that are supposed to emanate from shipping. This paper points out the importance of shipping to a nation, identifies the problems the country's shipping companies are facing and proffers solutions that include merging of the companies to have strong financial standing and a competitive edge.     

Risk perception affecting the performance of shipping companies: the moderating effect of China and Korea

Risks in the shipping industry have been highlighted and have attracted significant attention, especially following the bankruptcy of Hanjin in 2017. Due to the decrease in container volume, the business environment for large shipping companies in China has deteriorated. Therefore, major large shipping companies have implemented mixed ownership reform, which provides more opportunities for large Korean shipping companies to enter the Chinese shipping industry. This study first identifies risk perception, specifically focusing on the moderating effect of Chinese and Korean shipping companies, and then demonstrates the impact of these risks on shipping company performance. The results show that market, operational, and technical risks have a negative influence on Chinese shipping companies, whereas market, policy, financial, operations, and technical risks have a negative influence on Korean shipping companies. This study contributes to the fundamental understanding of the effect of risk perception on performance among shipping companies in both countries and calls for further research on risk management plans based on the risk factors identified herein. On a practical level, this study provides an important reference for operators and investors who seek to enter strategic alliances or joint venture in Chinese shipping industry.     

基于资源位理论的国际航运中心合作竞争模型

国际航运中心的本质是航运资源配置中心,各航运中心在不同资源位领域的竞争合作关系,是其深层次发展的关键.通过将波特钻石理论应用于国际航运中心资源位要素模型的构建,系统分析了决定航运中心竞争力的各要素特征.根据其不同的本质特性,将航运资源分为硬资源位、中间资源位和软资源位.研究发现,航运硬资源位和软资源位配置的模式不同,对应各航运中心间的合作竞争策略也不同.对不同资源位领域各航运中心的合作竞争模型及可能结果的研究成果,可对上海国际航运中心的建设发展提供理论指导.     

Evolution and research trends of container shipping

The shipping industry was transformed by the expansion of international trade and technological innovation, notably containerization, since the 1960s. Accordingly, this was followed by a significant increase in research addressing different aspects of container shipping. Despite such availability, important questions have remained unanswered: what are the major contributions that the research community has made to the container shipping industry, global and regional economies? Have their contributions been skewed towards particular themes, directions, and geographical areas? What can the shipping research community learn from the evolution and trends of container shipping research so that they can continue to contribute to the well-being of the global and regional economies? To address these questions, the paper undertakes a critical review and analysis on the evolution and trends of research in container shipping in the past four decades, based on a collection of 282 papers investigating different topics in container shipping featuring in major scholarly journals between 1967 and 2012. The study enables the shipping research community to enhance self-understandings and identifies major gaps for further research.     

Green shipping management capability and firm performance in the container shipping industry

This study empirically identifies crucial green shipping management capability and examines its impact on firm performance using survey data collected from container shipping firms, including shipping companies and agencies. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis is performed to identify three critical green shipping management capability dimensions, namely, greener policy, greener ships, and greener suppliers. In this study, firm performance is categorized into environmental performance and financial performance. The results indicate that a greener policy has a direct and positive influence on both the greener ships and the greener suppliers factors. Greener ships and greener suppliers are found to have an indirect and positive influence on financial performance through environmental performance. Accordingly, this study suggests that container shipping managers could focus on organizational green shipping management capability, specifically regarding policies, ships, and suppliers, to improve their environmental and financial performance. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings for container shipping firms have been discussed.     

Green shipping practices and firm performance

Global economic development is facilitated by the commercial shipping industry. Shipping operations contribute to the growth of international trade activities, which heavily count on ships to carry cargoes from places of production to places of consumption. Despite its importance, there have been growing concerns about the environmental impacts caused by shipping activities in international trade. To balance environmental protection and productivity, many shipping firms have begun to adopt green shipping practices (GSPs) to improve their operations in a more environmentally friendly manner. GSP consists of six dimensions, namely, company policy and procedure (CPP), shipping documentation (SD), shipping equipment (SE), shipper cooperation (SC), shipping materials (SM), and shipping design and compliance (SDC). GSP is becoming an important aspect of shipping operations. It is timely for the shipping industry to evaluate firm capability in carrying out greening operations, that is, firms’ “greening” capability. Firm capability comprises two key elements: one is embedded in firms’ business routines or activities, and the other concerns firms’ ability in transforming inputs into outputs. GSPs can be considered as inputs while firm performance measures as outputs. This study uses an input/output approach to examine the greening capability (GC) of shipping firms. The results indicate that shipping firms are relatively weak in the practices of SC and SE, while the capability scores of SM, CPP, SDC, and SD are all close to 1, with an average score of 0.927, 0.920, 0.924, and 0.978, respectively. Academic and managerial significance of the findings are highlighted.     

Spatial pattern of the global shipping network and its hub-and-spoke system

Port system is a research focus of transport geography, and most studies believe carriers are important factors in the development and concentration of the port system. Since the 1990s, carriers have played an important role in organizing the global shipping network and reorganizing the port system. But there isn’t a perfect method to evaluate carriers’ influence and the roles of each port in the maritime shipping networks. In this paper, we use the monthly schedule table of international carriers to describe and model the spatial pattern of the global shipping network and identify its hub-and-spoke system. The result shows that a hierarchical structure exists in the global shipping network. The North Hemisphere, especially the East Asia and the Southeast Asia, is a dominant region of the worldwide shipping network. East Asia, Southeast Asia, Northeast Europe, and East coast of the USA are the concentration regions of worldwide shipping lines. The ports of Hong Kong, Singapore, Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Kaohsiung etc have advanced capacity for maritime shipping and high potentials for being hub ports in the global shipping network. Today, the worldwide shipping network is transforming from the multi-port calling system to 44 regional hub-and-spoke systems. Meanwhile, the sub-networks with hub ports of Antwerp, Singapore, and Hong Kong have become the most important ones and dominate the whole global shipping network.     

The perception and image of shipping

The image of the shipping industry plays a vital role in developing maritime transport as a major future, sustainable transport alternative. In particular, it is crucial to understand the image the shipping industry has among young people and the anatomy of the concept in order to be able to effectively promote careers in shipping, to cultivate shipping as an attractive labour market and to develop attractive educational programmes. The focus of this paper is the image of the shipping industry. This study reports on the findings of a large-scale survey of the image of shipping- and image-related concepts among upper secondary school pupils in Sweden, Norway and Greece. We define and analyse empirically by means of multivariate statistical analysis the anatomy of the image concept. We identify various image dimensions, estimate how young people rate the shipping industry along these dimensions and estimate their relative importance to young people who are planning their future careers. The results from this study can be used as a base for describing and explaining the images that young people have of the shipping industry. Such knowledge is fundamental for deriving and developing constructive strategies to promote careers in shipping, to adapt shipping to the expectations of young people and to develop creative and relevant educational programmes. Finally, understanding the image of shipping among young people is important not only for the shipping industry, but for other stakeholders as well, such as ship-owners associations, trade associations, labour unions, transport authorities and administrations and policy makers at the national and supra-national level.     

Shipping's fourth wave: ship management and Vernon's trade cycles

This paper considers the question whether the present recovery of shipping means a return to pre-crisis conditions with hegemony of OECD shipping or whether shipping has irrevocably changed. Shipping is losing its national character as ship management firms contribute towards the fragmenting of traditional ship-owning firms into separately managed activities, making shipping more footloose as an industry and facilitating relocation in least cost factor markets. Trade cycles may be at work in shipping like those observed in many industrial markets, beyond the scope of any single government's ability to control. The dispersion of shipping and shipping firms away from the historical concentration in a few traditional maritime powers towards low-cost countries must be seen as a manifestation of a secular trend, giving rise to a profound reorganization not only of shipping markets but of shipping itself.     

我国集装箱班轮运输市场垄断程度研究

从市场集中度指数、市场力量和垄断行为3个方面考察我国国际集装箱班轮运输市场的垄断程度，显然高于将全球作为“一个”市场的程度。从市场集中度指数可以认为我国班轮运输市场已经达到中型寡头垄断程度。我国远洋班轮航线的勒纳指数高于0．6，甚至接近于1，说明班轮公司市场力量之强大。而我国现行的法律法规中没有为班轮运输市场的买方预设运价谈判和利益诉求机制，则使运输需求快速增长的中国外贸企业明显处于弱势地位。     

Barriers to energy efficiency in shipping

The shipping industry shows potential for improvements in energy efficiency. Nonetheless, shipping companies appear reluctant to adopt these seemingly cost-efficient technical and operational measures aiming at reducing energy costs. Such phenomenon is not specific to the shipping industry and is commonly referred to as the energy efficiency gap. Decades of research in other sectors have contributed to the development of taxonomy of economic, organizational and psychological barriers that determine energy efficiency gaps through the use of a variety of research frameworks. This article aims to apply this research in the shipping context through interviews and review of existing literature and applications from other industries, with the objective of providing useful insight for shipping managers. The article discusses examples of barriers that are typical to shipping and that are related to information asymmetries and power structures within organizations. Managers of shipping firms are encouraged to look through their organizations in search of principal agent problems and power structures among the possible causes for energy efficiency gaps in their companies’ operations and possibly strive towards organizational change.     

Developments in UK shipping: the tonnage tax

The new UK Government, elected in May 1997, came to power with a commitment to reverse the decline of the UK shipping industry and enhance the employment prospects of UK seafarers. The Government commissioned Lord Alexander of Weedon to investigate the case for a tonnage tax. In this paper, the economic arguments for supporting the UK shipping industry are reviewed. There is some evidence that the UK holds a comparative advantage in world markets in key sectors of the shipping industry and on-shore maritime related activities, but is being undermined by lower foreign taxes. In the absence of government support, the UK shipping industry is likely to continue to decline, and, by further reducing the supply of qualified UK ex-seafarers, put at risk the successful on-shore activities. Various measures that might be used to support a national shipping industry, e.g. a tonnage tax, are considered. The paper concludes by discussing the likely impact of the tonnage tax on the UK's shipping industry.     

Evolution of green shipping research: themes and methods

Over the past 30 years, there have been growing concerns on the environmental impacts of maritime transportation, which have attracted great attention from both academia and practitioners. Understanding developments in this area can help guide future research. We conducted a comprehensive review of green shipping research, comprising 213 papers published in transportation journals in SSCI of 2017 over the period 1988–2017. We find that research on green shipping has increased greatly since 2012, accounting for 77.5% of the reviewed papers. The main focus today on green shipping was on air pollution, and the classification of green shipping practice, such as technical measures, operational options, market-based measures, and recycling and reusing, is becoming clear. According to the existing studies, future research on green shipping must strengthen technology research to not only solve practical problems, but also to establish a theoretical green shipping system. Moreover, researchers from different countries could cooperate with each other to give effective suggestions on setting standards and laws of green shipping. Finally, we identify the future research themes will focus on setting up green shipping system and legislation and policy.     

航运电子市场精确定价

根据航运市场中影响定价的主要因素，提出了精确定价是在当今信息网络化和经济全球化的浪潮下，承运人最合适的定价形态，分析了精确定价及其条件．指出了在航运电子市场巾，承运人应从托运人的偏好、差异化的航运服务、单独付帐和避免托运人套利等4个方而对航运交易加以控制，从理论和实例2方面阐述了采用价格差异(精确定价)策略对承运人所带来的收益，在得出航运企业利润最大化条件的基础上，提出了承运人制定精确定价的5个步骤。从而为我国航运企业制订信息化及电子商务发展战略提供有益的参考。     

The potential for British coastal shipping in a multimodal chain

A strategy to revitalize coastal shipping within Great Britain is investigated. An examination of the regulatory environment shows government, at both the EU and British levels, aware of the environmental benefits of coastal shipping compared to road freight transport, if only mildly supportive in tangible terms. The geography of Great Britain and the modern preference for just-in-time deliveries have severely restricted the ability of coastal shipping to compete effectively with road freight transport. The primary objective of the paper is to investigate whether coastal shipping could be integrated into a multimodal door-to-door supply chain, where it is currently hampered by high costs of transhipment, slow transport speeds, and the incongruity of load sizes between land and sea modes. Integration requires the co-operation of all organizations within the multi-modal supply chain. However, coastal shipping companies have been known to be individualistic and mistrusting of alliances. Therefore, a Delphi study is undertaken to investigate the standpoint of leading managers in such companies towards multimodal integration. The results of the Delphi study indicate that managers are in favour of multimodal developments, in particular cooperation between coastal shipping and road haulage. However, there was agreement that the business is highly competitive, and this may prevent the forms of collaboration required for multimodal systems. The secretive nature of the coastal shipping sector could impede joint marketing to promote a mode of transport that is often 'invisible' to shippers. There was little consensus on the relationship that should exist between coastal shipping and ports, a topic worthy of further investigation.