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Business environments and global transportation system have become more complex than ever due to complexity drivers of industries which create uncertainty and unpredictability to organizations. Like other industries, the maritime business faces different and difficult problems which threaten organizational survival. The ability to cope with those uncertainties, threats and problems shows the resilience ability of organizations that help to survive and prosper. The organizational resilience concept arises as a requirement to deal with problems and uncertainties of business environments which are swiftly changing. This study aims to suggest an organizational framework to show how maritime business organizations as the sea leg of global transportation system can develop resilient organizations via complex adaptive systems (CAS) approach if adequate design features of CAS could be defined and included in organizational properties.

A total of 15 CAS features were identified as the enablers of organizational resilience throughout the literature. An interpretive structural modeling (ISM) approach has been conducted to determine the mutual relation between the CAS features which constitute an organizational framework. These CAS features have been categorized by conducting MICMAC analysis.

This study proposes a framework that identifies CAS features as the enabler of resilient maritime business organizations. The CAS approach offers new managerial toolkit to realize current organizational situations and allows managers to understand that it is difficult to control their system in this dynamic environment where special management practices are required especially in volatile times rather than ordinary times. Also, organizations could not compete as a sole organization but as a web/system of organizations. CAS is more resilient than other systems because resilience is the emergent occurrence of the system formed from nonlinear, dynamic interactions with self-organized agents.

The research has some limitations, like organizational resilience studies are in the infant stage and further research into this area should be extended. This study uses the CAS approach to develop organizational resilience. Further studies could use different lenses and contemporary subjects in management field which should also be useful while developing resilience in organizations. This study uses ISM and MICMAC analysis where further studies could use quantitative design and methods like formal concept analysis or the decision making trial and evaluation laboratory to determine the relational weighs of CAS features while developing resilient organizations. Future studies may also focus on different maritime stakeholders like IMO or ILO, maritime agencies, freight forwarders or insurance underwriters regarding developing and enhancing resilience of the maritime system.

World trade and transportation systems are getting more uncertain and lean on complex relations where maritime transportation is a “vital backbone” of such operations. But becoming more complex structures leads to vulnerable systems and organizations. Most risk management applications are based on predicting the known risks where many of them are not enough to fight with unknowns. Coping with today's problems are difficult for organizations in any industry. But for maritime business stakeholders who work in such a global web of relations, it is much more challenging. So, stakeholders of the system like forwarders, ports or ship chandlers may easily apply those features to develop resilient organizations too. Legal authorities of the system and rule-makers like local Chambers of Shipping, IMO or Classification societies can benefit from this framework and provide supportive settings to develop system-wide resilient organizations.

By understanding environmental uncertainty and complexity better than others, organizations become resilient and cope with significant difficulties which make them more competitive as a substantial strategic advantage. Resilient management offers to break down points at the system and shows them ways to restore quickly while transporting goods while traditional risk assessments are not enough.

The originality of the study lies in two folds; first of all the key and most used features of CAS is linked to developing resilient maritime organizations and by maritime expert opinions, this study tries to determine which of these CAS features are the most effective to trigger other features to develop organizational resilience in the maritime business. And secondly, the concept of organizational resilience and the CAS approach are not analyzed in depth in the context of maritime business.

Globalization has created conditions in which business has become increasingly global. The combined effect of global business, intense competition, weakening of labor unions, and the inability of national governments to control the negative effects of globalization has created immense difficulties in the formulation and implementation of global labor standards. This research takes an ancient industry with a long tradition of international features and regulations, that is, the maritime industry, as a case study to understand the dynamics associated with the regulation of a global industry. The study argues that J. R. Commons' works at the turn of the century not only give us excellent insights into the creation of global markets and the need for global labor rights protection but also provide us with a solution, that is, the creation of an “authoritative commission.” Finally, the study suggests that there is a need to enhance the role of ILO as a global “commission” to regulate the industry. Presently, the ILO does not have the essential features for becoming such a commission. Therefore, ILO should develop three important characteristics: ability to include new emerging actors, decision-making based on consensus and dialogue, and sanction power to implement its standards. Based on the above principles, ILO can work as the center of a global regulatory regime in the maritime industry. Through its power of sanction, it will implement its standards mainly through states. But, at the same time, it will network with unions and NGOs and all other important actors in the industry at local, national, and global levels to detect and eradicate substandard shipping.

The aim of this study is to provide a holistic analysis of all possible maritime business logistics processes related to import and export shipments in a fuzzy environment through a case study of a maritime logistics company based on the as-is and to-be models within business process management (BPM).

The analyses considered the following perspectives: (i) in the stage of the process identification, the definition of the problem was carried out; (ii) in the stage of the process discovery, ocean department was divided into ocean export/import operation departments; ocean export/import operation were divided into freight collect/prepaid operation processes; ocean export/import logistics activity groups were broken down into sub-activities for freight collect/prepaid operation; the logistics activity groups and their sub-activities were defined; each sub-activity as either operation or documentation process group was classified; the durations of sub-activities were evaluated by decision-makers (DMs) as fuzzy sets (FSs); the monthly total jobs activities were estimated by DMs as FSs; the applied to monthly jobs activities of total shipments were estimated by DMs as FSs; the durations of each sub-activities were aggregated; the duration of the logistics activity groups and the sub-activities for per job were calculated; the cumulative workload of logistics activity groups and sub-activities were calculated; the duration of sub-activities for per job as operation or documentation departments were calculated, (iii) in the stage of the process analysis, cumulative ocean export/import workload as operation or documentation for freight collect/prepaid were calculated; duration of activity groups and sub-activities for per job as operation or documentation were calculated; cumulative workload activity groups and sub-activities as operation or documentation were calculated, (iv) in the stage of the process redesign, cumulative workload, process cycle time as operation and documentation group and required labor force were calculated; the process cycle time of the theoretical, the as-is model and the to-be model were calculated: (i) the theoretical minimum process cycle time without resource were calculated by the critical path method (CPM), (ii) the process cycle time of the as-is model perspective with the 1 person resource constraint and (iii) the process cycle time of the to-be model perspective with the 2-person resource constraint were calculated by the resource constrained project scheduling problem (RCPSP) method.

The methodology for analyzing the ocean department operation process was successfully implemented in a real-life case study. It is observed that the results of the to-be model can be applicable for the company. The BPM-proposed methodology is applicable for the maritime logistics industry in the present study; however, it can be applied to other companies in maritime logistics as well as other industries.

This study contributes to research using BPM methodology in maritime logistics. This is the first study the logistics process analyses were carried out in terms of including all operation processes for a company. All processes were analyzed by using BPM methodology in maritime logistics. This study demonstrated the application of the BPM as-is and to-be models to maritime logistics. The as-is and the to-be models of the BPM methodology were applied in maritime logistics.

This methodology applied in this study can enable organizations operating in the time-urgent maritime logistics sector to manage their logistics processes more efficiently, increase customer satisfaction, reduce the risks of customer loss due to poor operational performance and increase profits in the long term. Through the use of these methodologies utilizing FSs, the CPM and the RCPSP methods, this study is expected to make contributions to the BPM literature and provide original insights into the field. Furthermore, this study will undertake a comprehensive analysis of maritime logistics with respect to BPM to deliver noteworthy contributions to the maritime logistics literature and provide original perspectives into the field.

The rapid change in technology has begun to influence the maritime sector with the effect of globalization. The impact of technologies is increasing in shipping management; on the other hand, the importance of the human element has also increased. International Maritime Organization has introduced regulations governing the training and social rights of seafarers. MLC 2006 has been an important improvement for the social rights of seafarers. Preventive measures for workplace bullying were started on ships. The safety regulations of STWC Manila 2010 have brought some improvements in the industry. The maritime industry will face some absolute changes brought by Industry 4.0 such as IoT, artificial intelligence, cloud technology and blockchain, although it is unclear yet what sort of changes will occur in manpower labor markets. There are some countries that carry on projects regarding unmanned ships presently. For example, Norway has realized several trial voyages, as well as some other projects, which were carried on by Finland and the EU. In spite of all these changes, seafarers obviously will be needed in the maritime industry. The main purpose of the study is to determine how, from where and how many seafarers will be demanded onboard in the future. Prospects, futurists’ approaches, opinions of sector representatives and research reports are evaluated, and the future of seafarers is discussed in this study.

This article analyses the role of cluster facilitators in the Singapore maritime cluster. Singapore has been recognised for its pro-business policies and its ability to attract international shipping companies to set up the ship ownership headquarters and ship management activities in Singapore.

The research is an empirical investigation on the approach for industrial cluster development of the Singapore maritime cluster, using the case study research methodology. The case study approach leverages on multiple sources of evidence from deep interviews (of 24 Singaporean firms and 13 Norwegian firms) related observations, documentation and archival records. As a means of contributing to the cluster renewal process, Singapore as the country embarks on the next stage of maritime cluster development, a benchmarking against the Norwegian Innovation Cluster has been incorporated.

The research findings reveals that Singapore is lacking in innovation activities that entails multi-firms collaborations and collaboration between multi-firms and research institutions. The existence of cluster organisation to facilitate collaborations between firms in the cluster and between firms in the cluster with research institutions is another contributing factor that are not institutionalised in the Singapore maritime cluster.

Though the research is grounded primarily on the international business theory, particularly from firm- and country-specific advantages of location decisions, the economic geography theory and cluster theory also complement the theoretical grounding.

The findings derived from this research aim to facilitate policy makers, maritime leaders and practitioners to develop effective courses of action in current and future maritime industry development.

The research provides value to maritime industry stakeholders, maritime leaders and policy makers in their firm positioning strategy. Thus, the research adds values to the maritime industry with similar country perspectives and firm values for developing policies.

This paper presents a systematic review of the literature in the domain of maritime disruption management, upon which future research framework and agenda are proposed. Two review questions, i.e. the measures that are employed to manage disruptions and how these contribute to resilience performance, were pursued.

The systematic literature review procedure was strictly followed, including identification and planning, execution, selection and synthesis and analysis. A review protocol was developed, including scope, databases and criteria guiding the review. Following this, 47 articles were eventually extracted for the systematic review to identify themes for not only addressing the review questions but also highlighting future research opportunities.

It was found that earlier studies mainly focused on measures, which are designed using mathematical models, management frameworks and other technical support systems, to analyse and evaluate risks, and their impacts on maritime players at the levels of organisation, transport system and region in which the organisation is embedded. There is, however, a lack of research that empirically examines how these measures would contribute to enhancing the resilience performance of maritime firms and their organisational performance as a whole. Subsequently, a Digitally Embedded and Technically Support Maritime Disruption Management (DEST-MDM) model is proposed.

This review is constrained by studies recorded by the Web of Science only. Nevertheless, the proposed research model would expectedly contribute to enhancing knowledge building in the specific domain of maritime disruption management and supply chain management overall while providing meaningful managerial implications to policymakers and managers in the maritime industry.

This research is perhaps one of the first studies which presents a systematic review of literature in maritime disruption management and proposes a future research framework that establishes the link between disruption management and resilience and organisational performance for empirical validation.

Evaluates the effects of shipwrecks and peoples’ reactions following them, with regard to their feelings of preventability on someone’s part. In particular to the Erika in 1989, and the Prestige in 2002. The European Union (EU), which theretofore seemed to be neglecting maritime safety appears to have developed a maritime culture. The EU seems to have adopted the International Maritime Organisation’s (IMO) attitude regarding safety protocols, which must be a right and proper thing to do. Concludes that shipping has needed, and is now receiving, a proactive approach with regard to safety from the EU which should limit, as far as possible, disasters of both a human and ecological kind for the maritime world.

Although female participation in the labour market has increased significantly over the last 50 years, transport remains a male dominated sector and maritime transport in particular appears to lag behind other modes. It is important to recognise that maritime careers struggle to recruit more generally. This chapter considers the gender gap in the maritime industry and asks what would make the maritime industry more attractive to women. It explores the literature through the lenses of career-decision, career decidedness and career self-efficacy in order to present a conceptual model to explain the persistent gap and consider what could be done to address it. Career choices, development and performance are affected by contextual variables, both personal and environmental, which can promote or hinder career development outcomes. In maritime transport, career perception, workplace culture, social capital and development opportunities still play a major part in the decision-making process and deter women from engaging with the maritime profession. This chapter proposes four interventions to effect much-needed change.

The focus of this paper is the UN’s agency for the maritime affairs, the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) and more precisely its approach to maritime safety. Being the only international rule‐maker, the sole setter of maritime safety standards that apply universally, the IMO exhibits increased interest especially with regard to its organisational culture, the safety culture that constitutes its core mission. An examination of the evolution of IMO’s safety culture is in essence an examination of the international approach to disaster prevention and risk management in shipping and it is in fact the subject of our present study. Our investigation will reveal the various safety issues that have been treated by IMO as high agenda items in recent years, as well as the factors that can be regarded as instrumental in cultural change and, thus, in the evolution of IMO’s safety philosophy.

The purpose of this study is to empirically evaluate the impact of coercive pressure, normative pressure and mimetic pressure on digital transformation and benefits in the maritime shipping context.

The authors collect data from a survey of 119 shipping companies, shipping agencies, port corporations and shipping forwarders in Taiwan and apply a structural equation model to test the research hypotheses.

Four conclusions can be drawn: First, digital transformation mainly results from coercive pressure and mimetic pressure. Second, another positive and important source of pressure for shipping digital transformation is the fact that competitors are gradually undergoing digital transformation and have gained recognition from customers. Third, shipping professional organizations and association (e.g. IACS, IAPH, Baltic International Maritime Commission) must keep up with the trend toward digital transformation and put forward guidelines and recommendations that can be followed in order to lead the maritime shipping industry. Fourth, digital transformation has great potential to help deliver the benefits (i.e. improve efficiency, relationship with customers and sustainability).

This research explores the digital transformation of the shipping industry through the lens of institutional theory. The results show that digital transformation is mainly due to coercive pressure and mimetic pressure. Digital transformation has been found to bring benefits that can help shipping operators allocate their resources effectively, thereby increasing operational efficiency, improving relationships with customers and enhancing sustainability.