Explaining variations in national fleet across shipping nations

Many studies on national shipping attribute the declines in national fleets of developed economies to the lack of comparative advantage, but little has been done so far to identify factors contributing to countries’ shipping comparative advantage using a systematic approach. Although shipping markets are highly international and competitive, it is not clear whether tonnage owned by countries is governed by country-specific factors. This paper seeks to explain variations in nationally owned fleet across shipping nations. The main variable of interest is national fleet tonnage owned by country of domicile as opposed to registered tonnage. The results of econometric analysis using data from 84 shipping nations indicate that various country-specific factors do indeed contribute to variations in fleet tonnage across shipping nations, albeit at different levels of significance. Financial market development, external trade, ship registration, shipbuilding and shipping history appear to have the most significant impact, followed by the level of development and technology and maritime policy. Based on the results of analysis, implications for policy and future research are also discussed.     

基于数据仓库的船舶运输智能决策支持系统

为解决业务数据量的不断增加导致传统船舶运输决策支持系统难以满足实际要求的问题,提出了基于数据仓库的船舶运输智能决策支持系统。设计了具有基础数据层、分析管理层、决策功能层和交互层的四层体系结构,建立了船舶运输数据仓库,使用联机分析处理技术将大量的源数据转化为有用的信息,服务于决策过程,实现了定性与定量相结合的船舶运输决策支持。采用Fortran和VB两种语言混合编程技术实现了系统执行效率的优化。     

Changing ownership structures in the Dutch fleet

The new Dutch shipping policy has given rise to high expectation and curiosity in the world of shipping. This, together with the obvious difficulties of an ex-post study of the effectiveness of such innovative policy, has prompted the authors to take an interest in attempting to investigate changes in ownership of the Dutch fleet 2 years after the new policy has been introduced. To do this, a rather new concept of ‘flagging out’ has been adopted, which is interpreted as a process leading to different degrees of ‘foreignness’ in a shipping operation. In this paper, a method to structure is presented, and ownership information, and changes in it are presented, that are essentially based on the theory of stochastic processes. The data used is the Dutch fleet data, which includes information on the nationality of the flag, parent ownership and management over the period 1994–1998. The results yield interesting insights in the shifts in the ownership and operational structure of shipping companies induced by the new policy. In particular, they allow one to establish the origin of new vessels, in which stage of ownership/operation it is most likely that shifts occur, and to determine the relationship between the different stages of the ‘flagging out’ process. These results, thus, enable an evaluation of the areas in which the policy can be expected to yield results.     

1997年后香港与内地航运发展的相关分析

随着１９９７年的香港回归，香港与中国内地间的航线变成了一条国内航线。然而，在“一国两制”的国策下，这一特别的航运市场将发生怎样的变化？本文针对这一问题，通过对香港与内地间水上运输的影响因素的分析，并采用计量经济学模型，对１９９７—２０００年两地间的航运量变化进行了相关分析及预测，并对海峡两岸直航等因素对香港内地间的航运冲击进行了定量研究。     

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.     

The modelling of dry bulk and tanker markets: a survey

This paper provides an overview of the development of the quantitative modelling techniques that have been applied to the analysis of dry bulk shipping markets. Of necessity it will be dated by the time it is published. The principal points that emerge from the survey are fourfold: first:-reduced form rather than structural modelling, has become the standard approach in the past 15 years. Second, there is a greater focus on modelling rate variability rather than rate levels, using models that estimate the behaviour of both the conditional mean freight rate and its conditional variance. Third, the introduction of models of financial derivatives and their application to shipping markets has been very marked, as finance models of risk management have been adapted to shipping markets. Fourth, the use of segmented models of different ship types, and higher frequency data is now standard. It is argued that the relative neglect of structural models means that estimating fully specified structural econometric models may be a fruitful research agenda for the future.     

The modelling of dry bulk and tanker markets: a survey

This paper provides an overview of the development of the quantitative modelling techniques that have been applied to the analysis of dry bulk shipping markets. Of necessity it will be dated by the time it is published. The principal points that emerge from the survey are fourfold: first:-reduced form rather than structural modelling, has become the standard approach in the past 15 years. Second, there is a greater focus on modelling rate variability rather than rate levels, using models that estimate the behaviour of both the conditional mean freight rate and its conditional variance. Third, the introduction of models of financial derivatives and their application to shipping markets has been very marked, as finance models of risk management have been adapted to shipping markets. Fourth, the use of segmented models of different ship types, and higher frequency data is now standard. It is argued that the relative neglect of structural models means that estimating fully specified structural econometric models may be a fruitful research agenda for the future.     

我国远洋干散货船型经济论证

干散货运输市场是世界海运市场的3大市场之一,虽然运输市场机制趋于完善,但受运价、船价和油价的影响,市场波动较大。针对这一现实情况,文章以船型技术经济论证方法为基础,建立单船运输经济性测算模型,判定出最优船型,并对运价、船价和油价3个影响因子进行敏感性分析,为航运企业制定船队发展规划和港口企业制定到港船型规划提供参考。     

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.     

Modelling with joint choice of ports and countries of origin and destination: application to Colombian ports

Literature has focused on studying port choice independently or as an element of a supply chain without considering the joint selection with the country of origin/destination of the imports/exports. However, the characteristics and location of a port may make it more attractive to mobilise more freight from/to some particular countries rather than others, making the port choice decision dependent on the country of origin/destination of the cargo. This article proposes advanced econometric models to evaluate simultaneously port choice and the country of origin/destination choice for Colombian imports and exports. Findings suggest that for imports and exports domestic freight rate is the most important variable for the joint choice process. Also, for exports, maritime transit time is more relevant than for imports, while for the frequency of shipping lines the opposite is true. The existence of a trade agreement and the gross domestic product per capita also have a significant influence on the election of a country for exports/imports.     

The enforcement of shipping standards under UNCLOS

This article discusses the enforcement of shipping standards, with a particular focus on Part XII of UNCLOS. Section 6 of Part XII contains the only comprehensive set of vessel-related enforcement provisions in the Convention, but the Part’s scope is limited to “the preservation and protection of the marine environment.” Therefore, not all shipping standards fall clearly within Part XII’s ambit, including those centered on safety, security, and crewing considerations. The enforcement provisions of Section 6 are favorable to flag states and their vessels, and Section 7 contains a number of safeguards for their benefit, so it is in the interests of these parties to have coastal state enforcement governed by Part XII. However, the ability of coastal states to establish and enforce shipping standards that apply within the territorial sea extends to more than just environmental matters. The result is that different standards give rise to different enforcement powers, depending on the maritime zone in which a vessel is located, even if those standards arise from the same international agreement. It is suggested that to remedy these problems, UNCLOS would need to be amended in order to provide a comprehensive enforcement regime for the enforcement of shipping standards.     

Flag state performance: An empirical analysis

Based on data available in mid-2006, the five cooperating international institutions of shipping — BIMCO, Intertanko, Intercargo, ICS, and ISF — produced a summary of factual information on 106 flag states. These international institutions intentionally avoided drawing conclusions on underperformance. This paper extends this assessment allowing for an in-depth empirical assessment of flags performance. Towards this end, the analysis uses weight factors reflecting the importance that an operator might wish to attach on the different variables before making his flag choice, and seeks to statistically (un)group ‘conventionally’ grouped flag states performance. The paper also examines whether IMO membership and/or active participation in the IMO is associated with a greater compliance of a flag-state to safety and relevant environment rules and thus to a better performance. The findings challenge the classic outright categorization of national flags as good performing ones and of commercial flags as those performing badly. The findings also support the suggestion that an active IMO participation, rather than a simple membership, enhances flag performance.     

Corporate social responsibility and service quality provision in shipping firms: financial synergies or trade-offs?

This study examines whether the implementation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and provision of service quality (SQ) to satisfy shippers result in financial synergies or trade-offs for shipping firms. To address this question, a contingency framework was introduced in this study. The literature was first reviewed for hypotheses development, followed by interviews with eight industry practitioners. Subsequently, an internet survey was administered to 156 shipping firms in Singapore, and the obtained data were analysed using path model analysis and simple slope analysis. The results indicate that CSR complements SQ and provides additional but modest financial contribution to shipping firms via customer satisfaction. In addition, synergistic interactions between SQ and CSR were found. Although there are financial synergies from the implementation of CSR and provision of SQ, the analysis reveals that CSR should only be engaged when a shipping firm is fairly competent at delivering quality shipping services. This paper contributes to both theory and practice by framing business decisions on implementing CSR under contingency theory and offering a strategic approach to managing SQ as well as CSR of shipping firms.     

A transaction cost analysis of Finnish, Swedish and Norwegian shipping

The purpose of the article is to analyse the operation of shipping companies in Finland, Sweden and Norway cross-sectionwise in 1989-1991. These represent three different types of shipping operations in three neighbouring countries in Northern Europe. In the analysis, an apllication of the transaction cosr approach (TCA) is employed. It is shown that finnish shipping is usually very concentrated both in terms of geographical coverage, cargo composition and ownership. In cargo shipping, Finnish shipping firms mainly operate on the 'domestic' routes connecting Finland to the main European markets. Few Finnish firms are operating in highly competitive operations such as cruise shipping and liquid and dry bulk trades. Ownership in shipping is also often institutionalized rather than being in private, independent hands. In Sweden, the hierarchial governance of shipping is less than it is Finland. In certain worldwide trades, such as reefer and car carrier trades, the governance structure could be defined as hierarchial due to high asset specificity and high degree of specialization. In Norway, the shipping industry seems to be strongly market-oriented. The industry is composed of shipping companies, whose existence depends on their cost competitiveness on the shipping market, and is usually not backed up by exclusive hierarchial arrangements. Notable exceptions are the LNG/LPG and car carrier trades. The classification presented principle can easily be extended to other shipping countries, or companywise comparisions, as well.     

A decision-making solution to ship flagging out via administrative maritime strategies

The choice of flag is one of the main strategic/critical decisions for shipowners in the initial stage of maritime enterprises. On the other hand, flagging out has a great influence on the prestige and economic benefits for traditional maritime countries. To address this issue, this paper proposes a Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) approach using a Primarily Strategic Action Plan (PSAP) in a short-run period and a Secondary Strategic Action Plan (SSAP) for a long-term perspective. The case is demonstrated with respect to the flagging out issue in Turkish shipping fleet. It measures the decision-making tendencies of shipowners using Turkish National Shipping Registry (TNSR), Turkish International Shipping Registry (TISR), and Open Registries (ORs) as potential shipping registry alternatives. The model outcomes originally contribute to Turkish maritime policy, especially in terms of strengthening and reinforcing of TNSR procedures.     

Changing ownership structures in the Dutch fleet

The new Dutch shipping policy has given rise to high expectation and curiosity in the world of shipping. This, together with the obvious difficulties of an ex-post study of the effectiveness of such innovative policy, has prompted the authors to take an interest in attempting to investigate changes in ownership of the Dutch fleet 2 years after the new policy has been introduced. To do this, a rather new concept of 'flagging out' has been adopted, which is interpreted as a process leading to different degrees of 'foreignness' in a shipping operation. In this paper, a method to structure is presented, and ownership information, and changes in it are presented, that are essentially based on the theory of stochastic processes. The data used is the Dutch fleet data, which includes information on the nationality of the flag, parent ownership and management over the period 1994-1998. The results yield interesting insights in the shifts in the ownership and operational structure of shipping companies induced by the new policy. In particular, they allow one to establish the origin of new vessels, in which stage of ownership/operation it is most likely that shifts occur, and to determine the relationship between the different stages of the 'flagging out' process. These results, thus, enable an evaluation of the areas in which the policy can be expected to yield results.     

集装箱船舶大型化对中国班轮运输的影响

通过竞争情报分析提供了各班轮公司未来船队结构和运力的变化趋势,由此观察到各班轮公司为了降低自身的营运成本,在最近几年大量订购超巴拿马型甚至更大型的集装箱船舶参与运输,但是却不能达到其预期的规模效应。原因就在于相当一部分成本随着船型的增大而线性增加,规模不经济。我们探讨了中国的班轮运输市场的几个重要特点:中外贸易的不平衡导致了货源的不平衡;未来贸易结构的调整会影响航线的布局和调派;贸易上的不稳定因素使班轮公司遇到外在的风险。这些特点会深远地影响集装箱船舶大型化的经济受益,相反的,集装箱船舶大型化的趋势也会加剧这些负面的影响,危及整个班轮运输市场。     

The role of training in developing entrepreneurship: the case of shipping in Italy [1]

This paper examines the role of management training on entrepreneurial development paths of a sample of small and medium-sized Italian shipping enterprises. Starting with an analysis of evolutionary dynamics at the international level and highlighting the peculiarities of shipping in Italy, this paper reveals teh importance of firm-specific factors, compared with country-specific factors, in determining the competitiveness of shipping companies. In such enterprises the entrepreneur's role and his/her level of entrepreneurial culture play an important part in conditioning developing paths. On the basis of the results from an empirical survey, thee study in question suggests several implications for implementing policies aimed at increasing the level of entrepreneurial culture by means of selective, diversified interventions in management training so as to develop the factors required by the firm to recover competitiveness.     

Optimized selection of vessel air emission controls—moving beyond cost-efficiency

Shipping currently has an unexploited potential for improved energy efficiency and reduced emissions to air. Many existing air emission controls have been proved to be cost-efficient but are still not commonly installed on board vessels. This paper discusses the so-called ‘energy paradox’ in maritime transportation, presenting barriers to overcome and criteria to consider when selecting cost-efficient air emission controls. Current approaches typically select available controls based on their cost-effectiveness. While this is an important aid in the decision-making process, and, in relative terms, easy to quantify, it is not a sufficient criterion to capture the true preferences of the decision-maker. We present in this paper a multi-criteria optimization model for the selection of air emission controls. This decision framework can also incorporate subjective and qualitative factors, and is applied to the shipping company Grieg Shipping. A survey among internal Grieg Shipping stakeholders identifies the important criteria to consider, their relative importance, and the scoring of the controls. This empirical data is used as parameters in the model and the model is then applied on a vessel of the Grieg Shipping fleet. The results show that nonfinancial factors play an important role in the selection of air emission controls in shipping.     

Direct shipping across the Taiwan Strait: flag selections and policy issues

The restriction on direct shipping across the Taiwan Strait under which ships registered in Taiwan were banned from calling at China’s ports might have restricted the expansion of the Taiwanese flagged fleet. The cross-strait direct shipping link was established since the Cross-strait Sea Transport (CST) Agreement was signed in 2008. According to the Agreement, only ships owned and registered on either side of the Taiwan Strait or registered in Hong Kong may, with due approval, engage in direct cross-strait carriage of cargos and passengers. The aim of this study is to find the optimal flag selection for Taiwanese shipping companies under the provisions of the CST Agreement. The Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) method is applied to find the preferred registry location among Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China. Sensitivity Analysis is also applied to test how criteria weights influence three alternative hierarchies. The results show Taiwan is the lowest priority with an unchangeable position in flag selection because Taiwanese national fleets mainly suffered higher operational costs. A lower tax rate and appropriate financial systems are therefore recommended in revising relevant shipping policies. Furthermore, to assist shipping companies to obtain China’s approval is also helpful to inspire ships flag back.