Levels of internationalization in the container shipping industry: an assessment of the port networks of the large container shipping companies

This paper examines the internationalization level of the world’s largest container shipping companies by examining their port networks. The results of our analysis show that only three of the nineteen companies could be considered as being truly ‘International’ and service the ‘lion’s share’ of the major and minor ports distributed across the globe. The port networks of the other companies in our survey, whilst having individualized features, shared common characteristics. Guided by the ‘Uppsala Model of Incremental Internationalization’ (Johanson and Vahlne, 1977), we were able to identify four internationalization levels of a container shipping company that are indicated by their port network.We argue that the port network plays an additional role as it contributes to the internationalization level of the container shipping companies. This is important because the internationalization level affects the container shipping company’s ability to expand its customer base both at a local and international level. Local customers would have access to a larger international destination network and international customers would be able access a larger local distribution network without transhipping between different companies.Amongst other issues, we were able to determine that, for the analyzed container shipping companies, ‘Internationalization’ of a port network means including or excluding ports in specific regions or sub-regions in their own network, and that a company’s home base or history plays a significant role in this development.     

Multi-objective decision support to enhance environmental sustainability in maritime shipping: A review and future directions

This paper aims to examine the potential of multi-objective optimization (MOO) as a decision support to improving sustainability in maritime shipping. We focus on environmental sustainability and the trade-offs involved with economic and operational objectives. Through a systematic approach, we review the literature on environmental sustainability, decision support and multi-objective optimization in maritime shipping. We identify the gaps and directions for future research. It is expected that the next generation of decision support systems for maritime transport will exploit the theoretical development in MOO to facilitate informed decision making in maritime supply chains considering environmental sustainability and the competing objectives.     

Istanbul Airport (IGA) and quest of best competitive strategy for air cargo carriers in new competition environment: A fuzzy multi-criteria approach

Our paper determines the best competitive strategy that can be implemented by existing and potential air cargo carriers in the Turkish Air Cargo Industry with the operationalization of Istanbul Airport (IGA) and reveals the competitiveness level of the industry for four bases. We look at the competitiveness levels by analyzing the competitive environment of the industry nationally and internationally both before and post IGA (estimated). We use fuzzy TOPSIS (FTOPSIS) based on the Fuzzy AHP (FAHP) to handle vagueness, which is inherent in the nature of new competition conditions integrating the framework of Porter's five forces analysis. In our study, we use the five forces as our main criteria (with a total of 19 sub-criteria) and the competitive strategies as our alternatives. Our results reveal that the cost-focused strategy is the best competitive strategy that can be implemented by existing and potential carriers in the industry. Another significant result underscores the fact that IGA increases the competitiveness level of the Turkish Air Cargo Industry both nationally and internationally to a fairly high level. Also, the threat of potential competitors is first among the five forces in the industry's new conditions. Our study fills the gap in the literature on the effects of major structural changes in an air cargo industry on the competition among carriers.