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The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between market orientation and service quality in the context of shipping companies. Moreover, this study aims to explore the moderating role of risk propensity in the above-mentioned relationship.

A research study was carried out on a sample of 255 shipping companies located in Greece. Data were obtained through a structured questionnaire from the managing directors or other senior executives. Data were analyzed through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, while the hypothesized relationships were determined through regression analyzes.

The analysis of the empirical data shows that intelligence generation and responsiveness have a positive and significant impact on the service quality of shipping companies. Also, the findings showed that this relationship is influenced by the degree of risk propensity, revealing, thus its moderating role on the market orientation – service quality link.

The current study contributes to the literature by examining for the first time the moderating role of risk propensity in the relationship between market orientation and service quality. Additionally, this is the first study that attempts to investigate the way the dimensions of market orientation predict service quality in the context of shipping companies.

Shipping is one of the major British industries and a valuable source of ‘invisible exports’ by virtue of its earnings of foreign currencies. One of the major costs incurred by shipping companies is that of preventing the corrosion of their vessels and at a rough estimate it is probable that something like £30 million is expended annually in countering the corrosion of ships and harbour installations. Ships are constructed mainly of steel and their protection is essentially a particular aspect of the problem of protecting steel against corrosion. Aluminium alloys and newer materials such as plastic sheets are being increasingly used on board ships, but these materials do not offer quite the same difficulty as regards protection nor is the problem yet of the same magnitude. Painting is the most widely used means of protection and the present article deals with some of the problems associated with the painting of ships from the point of view of a paint manufacturer.

With the diverse, heterogeneous nature of relationships being a key characteristic of service supply chains, their management is an important area for consideration. This is particularly true in the maritime logistics industry, yet the factors that lead to this heterogeneity are less well understood. This paper aims to explore the structure of relationships within the maritime logistics network and determine why they vary.

Interviews were carried out with 41 practitioners involved in the Taiwanese maritime logistics network. The data from these interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis and quasi-quantification.

The interviews identify that structural holes exist within this maritime logistics network, and that these particularly influence the relationships within this sector with ports being significantly affected. However, five factors are particularly identified that can further impact the strength of these relationships. Often, weak links between ports and both cargo owners and freight forwarders emerge as value-added services are provided by the network.

The findings are framed in a Taiwanese context, where cultural and political norms may give different results to other geographical regions. The research also limits consideration to containerized flows.

By providing detailed insights into relationship structures within the maritime logistics network, managers can take steps to develop appropriate links with other members of the network, reflecting upon the factors that lead to heterogeneity.

This paper expands knowledge on logistics service supply chains, identifying the importance of relationships in a derived demand environment. For maritime researchers, specific factors leading to relationship heterogeneity in the network are detailed, to inform future research.

This chapter reviews and analyses the contemporary development of liner shipping, port development and competition. It begins with a comprehensive review on the latest developmental trends of liner shipping and business strategies, as well as their impacts on port development and competition. Then, it discusses the responses of ports, past, present and (likely) future, in addressing these new demands and challenges. A very important point from this analysis indicates that, in the past decade, port development and competition have gradually evolved from being individual, technical efficiency-oriented to become more regional, economic efficiency-oriented. At the same time, ports have also moved out of their rather passive positions and undertaken positive steps to avert the traditionally strong bargaining power of shipping lines. This illustrates that port development and competition is a continuous morphological process which can change dramatically within a rather short period of time. This chapter provides a new perspective on port development and competition and a decent platform for further research.

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.

We develop the concept of the slave-trade balance of payments and generate its table for the United States for 1790–1860. In the process, we construct new data for the slave trade, including both the physical movement and revenue figures, and we analyze these numbers. The balance of payments includes slave imports, carrying trade in slaves, purchases of slaves that fail to be imported, outfitting and provisioning slave ships, and slave-ship sales. The slave-trade balance is integrated into the standard balance of payments. Among the findings are the following: slave imports were dominated by natural growth except for one decade; US ships had the greater role than foreign ships in the import trade, but were of small—and eventually nil—consequence in the carrying trade; federal and state laws to prohibit the slave trade in all its aspects were generally effective; and the slave-trade balance of payments was a small component of the overall balance.

Ship route prediction (SRP) is a quite complicated task, which enables the determination of the next position of a ship after a given period of time, given its current position. This paper aims to describe a study, which compares five families of multiclass classification algorithms to perform SRP.

Tested algorithm families include: Naive Bayes (NB), nearest neighbors, decision trees, linear algorithms and extension from binary. A common structure for all the algorithm families was implemented and adapted to the specific case, according to the test to be done. The tests were done on one month of real data extracted from automatic identification system messages, collected around the island of Malta.

Experiments show that K-nearest neighbors and decision trees algorithms outperform all the other algorithms. Experiments also demonstrate that linear algorithms and NB have a very poor performance.

This study is limited to the area surrounding Malta. Thus, findings cannot be generalized to every context. However, the methodology presented is general and can help other researchers in this area to choose appropriate methods for their problems.

The results of this study can be exploited by applications for maritime surveillance to build decision support systems to monitor and predict ship routes in a given area. For example, to protect the marine environment, the use of SRP techniques could be used to protect areas at risk such as marine protected areas, from illegal fishing.

The paper proposes a solid methodology to perform tests on SRP, based on a series of important machine learning algorithms for the prediction.

Marine experts have recognised the importance of on-board teamwork for a ship’s safe operation. The purpose of the study is to develop a framework of “on-board team effectiveness” as perceived by the seafarers with the help of conceptual categories discovered from the study. It describes and explain how members of floating shipboard team operates in a global environment which is dynamic, complex and full of challenges.

Qualitative research design was used to study wherein the grounded theory approach was adopted for data analysis. A purposive sample of 44 Indian seafarers covering all ranks and departments of the shipboard team were selected for the study. Primary data were collected through long interviews and focused group discussions with the respondents. Secondary data were collected through industry periodicals.

Ten conceptual categories were developed, and their interplay was identified to understand various aspects of shipboard team working in different contexts.

The insights gained from the study can be used to enhance shipboard team’s working and safe operation of the ship.

The study is unique in addressing team effectiveness issues of shipboard teams. Understanding teamwork effectiveness of a culturally diversified shipboard team shall facilitate safe working practices and act as a deterrent to human errors, which causes accidents and incidents.

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.