Measuring the Scope of Inter-Firm Agreements in the Container Shipping Industry: An Empirical Assessment

In container shipping industry inter-firm agreements are becoming progressively popular as ship-owners share their slot capacity with commercial partners in order to have fully loaded container ships and reduce financial risk. This manuscript focuses on the cooperative agreements among shipping firms, i.e., vessel sharing and slot charter agreements within consortia and strategic alliances. Through a quantitative approach based on network and OLS regression analysis, the authors scrutinise the propensity to cooperate, the geographic extent and 'leveraging effect' generated by this commercial practice on the container-shipping industry. Results show that carriers, usually regarded as independent, are instead fairly cooperative, especially when involved in trade lanes originating from the Far East. Finally, the authors show that carriers increase their commercial objectives by leveraging the operated fleet capacity. The authors conclude with some implications for managers and practitioners as well as a discussion on limitations and future extensions of this study.

• Record URL:
  • https://doi.org/10.1504/IJSTL.2014.064571
• Record URL:
  • http://inderscience.metapress.com/link.asp?target=contribution&id=W5174287XQ0R0776
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/17566517
• Supplemental Notes:
  • © 2014 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.
• Authors:
  • Parola, Francesco
  • Caschili, Simone
  • Medda, Francesca Romana
  • Ferrari, Claudio
• Publication Date: 2014

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Features: References;
• Pagination: pp 466-487
• Serial:
  • International Journal of Shipping and Transport Logistics
  • Volume: 6
  • Issue Number: 5
  • Publisher: Inderscience Enterprises Limited
  • ISSN: 1756-6517
  • EISSN: 1756-6525
  • Serial URL: http://www.inderscience.com/jhome.php?jcode=ijstl

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Container traffic; Empirical methods; Regression analysis; Shipping; Slot allocation; Strategic alliances; Vessel operations
• Geographic Terms: East Asia
• Subject Areas: Administration and Management; Freight Transportation; Marine Transportation; I10: Economics and Administration;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01539208
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Sep 26 2014 2:29PM