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Maritime logistics in the global supply chain

Dong-Wook Song & Paul T-W Lee

To cite this article: Dong-Wook Song & Paul T-W Lee (2009) Maritime logistics in the global
supply chain, , 12:2, 83-84, DOI: 10.1080/13675560902749258

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Published online: 20 Mar 2009.

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International Journal of Logistics: Research and Applications
Vol. 12, No. 2, April 2009, 83–84

EDITORIAL
Maritime logistics in the global supply chain

As world economies become ever more globalised and interlinked, international logistics and
maritime (shipping and port) industries are experiencing challenges as well as enjoying greater
business opportunities. In acknowledgement of this, the Conference on Shipping, Port and Logis-
tics Management was held at Kainan University in Taiwan on 28–29 March 2008. This conference
in conjunction with the second Asian Logistics Round Table was well attended, attracting aca-
demics, researchers and professionals from over the globe. The papers in this special issue have
been developed from selected papers presented at the conference.
Maritime Logistics, as the primary means of transporting parts and finished goods (viz., out-
bound logistics) on a global scale, has recently attracted increasing attention from academics.
Maritime Logistics, however, is a term which is not easy to define, and its precise definition,
scopes and roles within the global supply chain network are yet to be established. In an effort to
gain a better understanding of such matters, it might be useful to consider the underlying scope
and characteristics of the overlapping terms Maritime Transport, Logistics and Supply Chain
Management and Maritime Logistics. It is clear that Maritime Transport (shipping and ports) is
largely concerned with the movement of goods and/or passengers between two seaports by sea.
Logistics and Supply Chain Management generally relates to the co-ordinated management of
the various functions responsible for the flow of materials from suppliers into an organisation
through a number of operations within the organisation, and then reaching out to its customers.
Hence, it consists of a series of activities along the network concerned, which in many cases
will involve maritime activities. There has been some convergence of Maritime Transport and
Maritime Logistics, and this can be attributed to the physical integration of transport modes
driven by containerisation and the evolving demands of end-users that require the application of
logistics concepts to the use of these modes and the achievement of logistics goals. In this pro-
cess, a number of issues still require further elaboration and debate from an academic perspective.
In this respect, the conference offered a timely opportunity for such discussion and the papers
included in this issue represent some reflections of this discussion.
The first paper by Cheon evaluates how different types of global terminal operators (such
as global stevedores, global hybrids and global carriers) influence port efficiency. The relative
technical efficiency of major world ports is measured through Tiered Data Envelopment Analysis,
taking into account the levels of participation of global terminal operators in container production.
The paper concludes that a major incentive for operators to participate in terminal operations is
to secure access to key regional port facilities.
In the second paper, Cullinane and Wang extend the accessibility issue as an aspect of port com-
petitiveness. The current global trend towards greater market concentration in shipping and port
operations has been intensified, as has competition between container ports. Therefore, examining

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© 2009 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/13675560902749258
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84 International Journal of Logistics: Research and Applications

the accessibility of individual container ports to the wider maritime container transportation
network is imperative. They analyse the accessibility of the world’s top 10 container ports as an
exemplar application and propose a framework for the assessment of port competitiveness that
involves supplementing existing quantitative determinants with a formulated index.
The third paper by Lu, Lin and Tu examines an ever more important issue in business com-
munities – Corporate Social Responsibility. They investigate the relationships between CSR and
organisational performance in shipping companies. CSR is captured with the three dimensions of
‘community involvement and environment’, ‘disclosure’ and ‘employee and consumer interests’,
and linked to organisational performance, both financial and non-financial. Lu et al. conclude that
the dimensions of community involvement and environment and disclosure have a positive effect
on financial performance, whereas the employee and consumer interests dimension positively
influences non-financial performance.
The final paper by Panayides and Song attempts to define and develop ‘measures’ of the inte-
gration of port/terminals into global supply chains. The paper identifies four key parameters from
the literature and hypothesises them to be part of the higher-order construct of ‘port/terminal
supply chain integration’. Data for operationalising the conceptualised variables were obtained
via a large-scale survey of container terminal operators. A model was developed and validated
using confirmatory factor analysis. By focusing on such parameters as determination of costs,
revenues, performance, productivity and competitive advantage for international supply chains,
important implications for maritime logistics have been drawn.
Selecting so few papers from a vast pool requires a thorough reviewing process. Thankfully,
over the course of editing this special issue, we were able to rely upon a number of capable fellow
academics. Our gratitude goes to first the contributing authors for their professional and timely
reaction to our requests and secondly the reviewers for their valuable time to ensure the quality of
the papers. We hope this special issue ignites more fruitful and productive discussion and research
on Maritime Logistics in the future.
Dong-Wook Song
Logistics Research Centre
Heriot-Watt University

Paul T-W Lee

Department of Logistics and Shipping Management
Kainan University