TRI Maritime Research Group members, Prof Alf Baird and Gordon Wilmsmeier, contribute to the latest volume of this series.

Both Alf and Gordon have contributed chapters to the edition, details of which can be found below. Please follow the link to the Institute of Shipping Economics and Logistics wesbite to purchase this book.

Vol. 2: Management Issues in Container Shipping

ISSN 0174-5728

The idea for a second volume of the Handbook of Container Shipping Management was already born when the first volume had not even been published. In the meantime, the success of the latter has reassured us that the concept of bringing together authors from academia and the industry meets the demand and is worth pursuing further. While the first volume provides a broad picture of the container market, the present second volume looks more closely into the operational level. Its twelve chapters are clustered into three broad thematic fields:

• General Management Issues
• Market Analysis
• Operational Issues

This volume is addressed first and foremost to practitioners at the management level, but it is equally of interest to academics that have a particular interest in any of the topics treated here. Information about the authors including the possibility to contact them directly, comprehensive references and endnotes to each chapter, a guide to further reading and a glossary complete this book and make it a valuable resource for detailed research as well as for day-to-day use.

You might be glad to know that the Handbook of Container Shipping Management (ISL Book Series No. 32) Vol. 1: The Container Market - Supply/Demand Patterns is still available.

The Editors:
Christel Heideloff, Senior Economist (ISL, Bremen - until December 2007)
Prof. Dr. Thomas Pawlik (Kiel University of Applied Sciences)

 

Global Strategic Management in Liner Container Shipping

Dr. Alfred Baird is Head of the Maritime Research Group at Edinburgh Napier University's Transport Research Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland.

This article offers an analytical framework for the principal strategic management options and choices in the global container shipping industry, implying the superiority of multi-strategic management choices over specific management approaches. It argues that several alternative strategies supplement each other and might help to achieve a more flexible way of container transportation service. This framework is applied to strategic assets such as different ship types, terminals and intermodal transport on the one hand and to strategic operations such as organisational structure, information systems and trade agreements on the other hand.

 

Shipping Networks Evolution in International Containerised Trade

Gordon Wilmsmeier is senior research fellow at the Transport Research Institute (TRI) at Edinburgh Napier University.

Ricardo J. Sánchez is Economic Affairs Officer at the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (UNECLAC) and Assistant Professor of the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile.

The structures of liner service networks are in constant evolution. Strategies of shipping lines have been adapting to the changes in trade flows and in adjustment to the industry's internal development.

Shipping industry's market structure, liner service supply and trade developments are highly interconnected. The strategies in place by shipping lines influence the integration of a region in the global liner shipping network. The integration and connectivity of a region can be decisive for a country's competitiveness in international trade. This is especially true for smaller markets. This chapter reviews the evolution of liner shipping supply on the West Coast of South America to exemplify the existing challenges and dependencies of a region on the strategy of shipping lines and feedback effects from development in other regions. Liner shipping network structure is not just a matter of demand it strongly underlies economic calculations and strategic trade offs of the shipping industry.