Analysis of container throughput: Demand forecast and seaport competitiveness assessment

Seaports play a crucial role in the container industry, where they act as important nodes in the transport chain to facilitate international trade. In a competitive market, port capacity plays a significant role in defining its competitive position to attract demand and avoid congestion. Failing to provide suitable capacity results in the loss of market share. Therefore, port decision-makers face the challenge of maintaining and developing suitable port facilities to provide efficient services to port users. One of the aspects that decision-makers consider in the planning and development process is analyzing container demand. The analysis of container demand can be challenging due to the dynamic changes in international trade, port location and accessibility, competition from other ports in the same geographic region, and port selection behavior of shippers and liner companies. This dissertation focuses on analyzing container demand; specifically, it has two main objectives: Forecasting short-term container demand and assessing the competitiveness position of the port. To forecast demand, the univariate time series stochastic approach is applied based on the methodology of Box-Jenkin, and because it only requires the historical container throughput. The developed model is used to forecast container demand of Jeddah port. The proposed model provides accurate forecasts with a confidence interval of 93 Percent. The systematic forecasting approach provides the ability to update and apply the methodology continuously in the future. To assess port competitiveness, spatial interaction models (SIM) are applied to estimate the impact of port performance, hinterland accessibility, and geographic location on the container flow. Both temporal and spatial data are collected for the four major ports in Saudi Arabia, which are analyzed in the case studies and SIM calibrations. The analyses performed in this study revealed that port users, as the results of modernization and privatization of the transport sector of the country, are provided with feasible port alternatives to efficiently transport freight, leading to fierce inter-port competition. The analysis also reveals that maritime connectivity of ports located in the Red Sea have a competitive advantage that allow them to attract more container flow and reach further hinterland regions when freight rates increase. This is due to their strategic location in the major maritime shipping routes. However, the availability of railway connectivity provides cheaper inland alternative that restricts the importance of maritime accessibility. This dissertation should be of interest to policy and port-decision makers. The applied forecast model is important in the planning phase of resource allocation and facility improvements because it provides a reliable instrument to obtain insight into the future demand. The assessment of port competition helps decision-makers in evaluating the impact of port strategies by understanding the competitive position of the ports. Recognizing the scarcity of systematic research on Saudi Arabian seaports suggests that these forms of forecast analysis and competitive assessment will benefit the port sector in the country

Stakeholder Management in Maritime Logistics Ecosystems: How tackling the main challenges of the industry

This PhD thesis deals with stakeholder management theoretical constructs and empirical practices within maritime logistics ecosystems. The rationale of the study grounds on the recent shift of the academic literature\u2019s focus on maritime logistics from the single organisation to the whole business ecosystem. In this perspective, formal and informal relationships with business partners and related parties have been demonstrated to become fundamental for the survival and success of firms and organisations belonging to maritime logistics ecosystems. The constant dialogue and coordination of strategic and operational activities between the heterogeneous actors constitute the preconditions to build wider and more resilient networks as well as to generate benefits for all parties and stakeholders involved. In this context, stakeholder management theoretical constructs can provide maritime logistics firms and organisations with useful managerial practices and best practices for identifying and exploiting unprecedented opportunities to handle relationships and interactions with both business parties and different categories of stakeholders. The variety of actors belonging to maritime logistics ecosystems as well as the array of related stakeholders, that unveils heterogeneous needs and interests, urge further empirical research to disentangle multiple practices of stakeholder management that have not all been investigated yet. In this vein, collaborative and responsible behaviours from maritime logistics firms and other involved organizations may support key actors with facing the new environmental, social, and technological challenges shaping the industry. In this perspective, this PhD thesis examines the main theoretical constructs of stakeholder management by performing an extensive literature review to comprehend the foundations and managerial benefits of stakeholder relationship management and corporate social responsibility. Then, it provides four empirical research to disentangle both strategies and behaviours of different maritime logistics actors, stressing the business benefits and managerial opportunities emerging from the adoption of well-defined and planned stakeholder management practices. Each empirical research addresses multiple challenges (i.e., environmental, social, and technological challenges) and assumes the perspective of one of the key actors of the maritime logistics ecosystem (i.e., once port managing bodies, once shipping companies, and twice terminal operators). The thesis investigates specific dimensions related to the strategic objectives, behaviours, and managerial options of these actors for effectively managing the relationships with their salient stakeholders. The outcomes of empirical research provide four valuable exploratory and qualitative studies grounding on stakeholder management literature. Managerial implications for private, public and hybrid actors of maritime logistics are extensively debated to pave the way for future studies on stakeholder management within this business ecosystem. In this perspective, this PhD thesis would take a step forward in the research on new managerial practices to effectively manage stakeholder relationships in the maritime logistics ecosystem

THE INTERNATIONALIZATION PROCESS IN THE CONTAINER PORT INDUSTRY. A panel-data analysis.

Over the last decades, the container port industry has experienced unprecedented transformations, which have profoundly re-designed its structure and competitive boundaries. Port reform and liberalization process in many countries have opened unprecedented business opportunities for private port operators. Moreover, the globalization process has favored the expansion of international trades with a relentless two-digits growth rate of container ports’ volumes for several years. These drivers have triggered the emergence of internationalization strategies pursued by terminal operators and the raise of the industry-specific Multinational Enterprises (MNEs), namely the Global/ International Terminal Operators (GTOs/ITOs). Against a world containerized throughput of about 802 million TEUs (2019), the twenty-one companies classified by Drewry Shipping Consultants (2020) as ITOs handled about 66% (about 530 million TEUs). Such proportion demonstrates ITOs’ relevance in the industry thus suggesting that their strategic behavior affect industry trends worldwide. The PhD thesis inserts in International Business (IB) research field aiming to respond, through Research Objective 1, to the prominent call made by Vahlne and Johanson (2020) for the collection of longitudinal data so as to conduct quantitative time-series analyses and apply main IB theoretical constructs of firms’ internationalization process to specific sectorial cases, like the global container port industry. In the last twenty years, ITOs have performed both horizontal and vertical integration strategies to keep pace with global and regional demand expansion as well as to diversify corporate risk across various geographic regions. In this perspective, the PhD thesis inserts in the Strategic Management research field aiming to investigate, through Research Objective 2, key-drivers of the implementation strategy of ITOs’ internationalization process, like the location (i.e., regional expansion versus “semi-globalization” versus global presence strategy) and entry mode options (e.g., M&As activity / concessions or leases; the wholly-owned subsidiary / joint venture dilemma, etc.) choices, focusing on the significance of firm an country-specific factors (e.g., the shareholding and governance structure of ITOs: the nature and the entrepreneurial orientation of their “ultimate” ownership). Furthermore, the PhD thesis intends to investigate, through Research Objective 3, the strategic behavior of ITOs (i.e., competition versus co-operation and the concept of “co-petition”) in the global playfield, with a particular emphasis to the formation, the widening and the strengthening of equity joint-ventures among ITOs at the highest level of the corporate hierarchy, the “ultimate” ownership one. Under this perspective, it is detected the increasing role in and financial commitment to the container port industry of State-owned enterprises (SOEs), of State-holding companies and of Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs)

Port competitiveness in North East Asia : an integrated fuzzy approach to expert evaluations

Despite the fact that the Northeast Asia (NEA) region, which had four of the top five and 20 of the top 30 container ports in the world in 2003, can be regarded as holding a central position in liner shipping and the handling of container cargo volumes, very little research has been done into the evaluation of its port competitiveness (EPC). For this reason, the EPC in NEA can be regarded as a problematic and urgent issue to be solved, and worthy of academic attention. From this aspect, this research set out to attempt to address the above issue by means of utilizing expert knowledge. However, the EPC contains problems of complex multipleattributes and multiple-hierarchies (CMAMH). In addition, difficulties concerning certain characteristics of evaluation such as complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity are also involved. To deal with such problems, in this research, the employment of integrated fuzzy evaluation (IFE) as a methodology was decided upon. As a result of the adaptation of the methodology, certain indications from this research to the theory and practice for container ports have emerged and are clearly identifiable. With regard to theory, this study has contributed to theoretical development significantly in four ways. First, the factors and taxonomy of port competitiveness for the container ports in NEA have been provided for the first time. Second, this is the first integrated approach for the EPC in NEA, the most competitive area in the world. Third, this research was also the first to attempt extracting critical weak points and/or influential factors affecting current port competitiveness. Finally, the adoption of IFE made it possible for the first time to uncover the interactive relationships between the competing container ports. In terms of practice, this research has also provided certain contributions of utmost importance. First of all, the study has provided a suggestion for the most recent port ranking in respect of port competitiveness. Moreover, changes in competitiveness power, which are dynamically and interactively affected by the relationship between the ports, have been successfully estimated and suggested. Thus, such changes in the competitiveness in NEA can now be easily forecasted by port actors