Clique survival in the port industry network: a longitudinal perspectiveFeatured

Clique survival in the port industry network: a longitudinal perspective

July 22nd, 2014 Featured, PortStudies

PortEconomics associate member Francesco Parola (Department of Business Studies, University of Naples “Parthenope”), along with Giovanni Satta (Department of Economics and Management, University of Genoa) and Simone Caschili (UCL QASER Lab & Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London) presented their latest research on “Social and instrumental antecedents of clique survival in the port industry network: A longitudinal perspective” during the the annual conference of the International Association of Maritime Economists – IAME 2014, that was held in Norfolk, Virginia, USA.

The recent proliferation of inter-firm collaborative linkages within the container port industry is progressively shaping a complex architecture of voluntary ties among terminal operators, i.e. an inter-organizational network. Within the overall industry network, some stable groups of densely interconnected firms emerge suggesting the existence of “cliques” where firms repeatedly cooperate with each other and develop strong and durable ties. The growing pressure exerted by environmental uncertainty and market volatility on clique stability, stimulates a fruitful academic debate on clique survival and its determinants.

The present study investigates social and instrumental antecedents of clique survival, focusing on equity joint-ventures (EJVs) engaged by international and local terminal operators in a ten-year timeframe (2002-2011). For this purpose, the study introduces a longitudinal network analysis of inter-firm relationships. In particular, research hypotheses are tested performing binomial logistic regression analysis. In line with network theory assumptions, the outcomes corroborate the explanatory role of a number of social (i.e., cultural similarity and organizational mismatch) and instrumental (i.e. the presence of core firms within the clique and clique equality) antecedents. The results, indeed, bring valuable implications for both academics and practitioners.

You may freely download the paper and presentation @PortEconomics.

Dr. Francesco Parola is Associate Professor at the University of Genoa in the Department of Economics and Business. He is also member of the “Italian Centre of Excellence for Integrated Logistics” and of the “MAR.TE. sea-land logistics” research consortium based in Naples. He has been visiting researcher at the "Center for Maritime Economics & Logistics" (MEL) of the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, at the "Institut National de Recherche sur les Transports et leur Sécurité" (INRETS) in Paris, at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore, and at the University of the Aegean in Chios (Greece). His research and teaching interests include port economics and policy, maritime logistics and governance and the application of business and strategic management disciplines in the maritime transport sector. In particular, he extensively studied the strategies of transnational container terminal operators and their relationships with carriers and port authorities across major regions. Liner shipping competition and co-operation, intermodalism and rail transport are also themes of his research and teaching activities. Francesco has been involved in several research projects and consultancy studies examining the maritime transport industry, port governance and reform patterns, the structure and the evolution of the European port industry and other maritime and transport topics. He is a Council member of the International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME) and an active member of the Port Performance Research Network (PPRN). Francesco regularly participates as speaker at many conferences and workshops on port and maritime issues, such as IAME and WCTR events, and contributes to OECD round tables. Together with the PortEconomics member Pierre Cariou and other colleagues, he co-organized the IAME 2013 Conference that was held in Marseille, 3-5 June. Francesco extensively published in port and maritime themes across various international peer-reviewed journals, such as International Journal of Production Economics, Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Journal of International Management, Journal of Transport Geography, International Journal of Logistics Research and Applications, R&D Management, Transport Policy, Maritime Economics & Logistics, Maritime Policy & Management, Tourism Geographies, International Journal of Shipping and Transport Logistics and others. Francesco guest edited a number of special issues in leading international journals on transport and maritime logistics and in 2014 he has been appointed as an Associate Editor of Maritime Policy & Management (MPM). Since January 2016 Francesco has been appointed as an Editorial Board member of Maritime Economics & Logistics (MEL). Francesco Parola is a member of PortEconomics.eu a web-based initiative aiming to advance knowledge exchange on port economics, management and policies. In October 2014 he hosted in Naples the fourth edition of the "PortExecutive Seminar", an intensive two-day education programme that was joined by managers and policy makers coming from four continents. For two years he served as a member of the management board of the Genoa-Savona Port Authority. Currently he is senior advisor of the Italian Ministry of Infrastructures and Transport.

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