Hong-Oanh Nguyen

JILT (Journal of International Logistics and Trade)

JILT (Journal of International Logistics and Trade)

Cruise shipping is one of the fastest-growing sectors in the maritime industry. This is due to the growing demand of the sector and the extension of capacity and cruise service coverage. This study uses network measures and random network models to analyse the structure, characteristics and connectivity of the cruise shipping network in Asia and Australasia. An analysis of 200 cruise voyages operated by 12 international cruise lines between 139 ports across 20 countries in the Asian and Australasian regions has found that the cruise shipping network is a scale-free network. This means the degree distribution follows a power law. A few ports play a central role in connecting ports in the network. However, their importance in the network varies depending on which measure of centrality is used, i.e. the degree, betweenness, closeness and eigenvector centrality. The establishment of a link between two ports is influenced by their connections with a third one or triangle relationship.

Located in Southeast Asia as one of the most dynamic economic regions in the world and close to north-south shipping routes, Vietnam’s seaports play a vital role in promoting its international trade and economic growth. And yet, most ports are small and owned by the public sector. Their performance is subject to various factors relating to government policy, operational and market conditions. Although the Government has been trying to improve the sector’s performance through corporatization, its corporatization model is unique in many ways compared with reform models in other countries. This study seeks to analyse the effects of government policy, operational and market conditions among other factors, on Vietnamese seaports’ efficiency. Double-bootstrap data envelopment analysis (DEA) and univariate and multivariate analyses were conducted using the data sample of 41 ports for years 2015 and 2016. The analysis results show that the factors of production, regional location and reform policy had a significant impact on port performance.

Seaport management environment has continually changed over the last few decades due to increasing external pressure for seaports to be more competitive, active, dynamic and growing sustainably. These changes have created the need to manage organisational effectiveness in order to monitor port performance and achieve organisational objectives. While organisational effectiveness has been well known in organisational management and important in port management, its application to the seaport sector is limited. This paper presents exploratory research into critical factors of Saudi Arabian seaports’ organisational effectiveness. A Delphi method was applied. Data were collected from a two-round survey of the Saudi Arabian seaports, and interviews of 43 senior staff from Saudi Arabian seaports. A mixed method combining quantitative and qualitative analysis was conducted. A total of thirty-one (31) factors from six different dimensions, namely human resource management, customer service, finance, operation, marketing, research & development, were identified to be influential to OE. The gathered data are no doubt important to seaports because only limited research has been conducted on the application of the organisational effectiveness concept to the seaport sector. Findings of this research regarding selecting and evaluating the most influential factors of OE are relevant to decision makers in managing seaport organisations.

The maritime industry is one of those rare industries that are both highly international integrated to international trade and also highly capital intensive dependent on substantial investment amount. In the literature, ship investments have not been widely examined through the firm-level investment theories to explore the link between investment level and asset price valuation. The general trend in the literature of ship investments is to analyse the relationship among the shipping markets (newbuilding, second-hand, freight rate and scrap) and their impact on asset price valuation, the timing of investments and market entry and exit conditions. In this paper, we extensively reviewed the literature of firm-level investment theories and ship investments. We showed that the application of firm-level investment theories to the ship investments is confined to the basic investment valuation models, such as Net Present Value and Real Option Analysis. Ship investments need to be examined by firm-level investment theories to define firm/industry value maximization level within the approach of the solid investment theories.

This empirical paper identifies the critical factors influencing ocean container carriers' selection and examines the impact of the influential factors on the competitiveness of ocean carriers from the freight forwarders' perspectives. Data for the study was collected from 105 freight forwarding organisations. The significant factors influencing the competitiveness of ocean carriers were identified using structural equation modelling. Results indicated that the factors affecting the competitiveness of ocean carriers are schedule reliability, document accuracy, service quality, freight rate, door-to-door service and environment. This paper also proposes a model that shows the direct effects of the influential factors on the competitiveness of the ocean carriers. The model validates the competitiveness of ocean carriers from the freight forwarders' perspective. The understanding of these factors is paramount to the liner shipping companies because it shall enable the liner shipping companies to formulate relevant strategies to attract freight forwarders in patronising their shipping services.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to empirically evaluate the key impediments to the competitiveness of the rail sector in Australia; and second, to provide relevant transport management and policy recommendations for enhanced competitiveness. This paper has adopted an empirical approach. A survey was developed and distributed among rail stakeholders in Australia. Accordingly, exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were conducted to evaluate the key impeding areas. This paper found four areas that are impeding rail development, these being infrastructure management, shortage of freight data and poor information sharing, service delivery and organisational and commercial interactions. The theoretical approach of this thesis can be applied to any freight market where competition exists between different transport modes. However, the specific strategies provided in this research in terms of transportation management, infrastructure planning and policy were made according to the specific market condition, infrastructure quality and regulation that exist in Australia. The findings provide important implications for both industry and government in terms of making transport planning and policy decisions, but also useful insights by identifying the weak parts of the rail sector and directions to target them. The notion of the rail stakeholder does not appear to have been previously defined in the literature. Therefore, this research takes a broader view of rail stakeholders to include various interest groups within the rail sector and its operational environment.