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The purpose of this paper is to test the 5GP concept with measurement of the performance of Busan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai ports, employing a hybrid method of consistent fuzzy preference relation (CFPR), VIsekriterijumska Optimizacija i KOmpromisno Resenje (VIKOR) and PROMETHEE.

The authors developed the concept of the fifth generation ports (5GPs), and apply CFPR, VIKOR and preference ranking organization method for enrichment evaluations (PROMETHEE) to evaluate the 5GPs.

The performance of the ports of Hong Kong and Singapore is close to meet the definition of 5GP criteria. On the contrary, ports of Busan and Shanghai are still behind the 5GP stage in light of the majority of the evaluation criteria’s performance.

This paper studies four ports. More empirical tests are needed to verify the applicability of the 5GP concept toward other ports.

The findings provided port managers with the insight of how to improve their port to meet the criteria of 5GP.

New criteria and higher expectations of existing requirements present challenges to port managers for a need to raise the bar of service standards and develop new competencies.

The authors developed the concept of the 5GPs. Newly developed 5GP contributes to expanding the concepts of first to fourth generation ports developed by UNCTAD.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically test a new theory called the balanced theory of port competitiveness.

Data were collected from multiple respondents in 72 of the largest container ports. The instrument was translated into English, Simplified Chinese, Korean, and French. The data were collected through online and paper-based surveys. The data were analyzed using analytical hierarchy process.

The theory was shown to explain the behavior of port stakeholders in improving competitiveness by balancing the need to attract new customers with that of attracting new investors when making decisions, which can often be contradictory. The analysis showed significant effects for the five variables of volume competitiveness (VC) and the five variables of investment competitiveness.

This study is limited in that it only tested the balanced theory on the largest container ports. The decisions by port managers may differ at smaller ports or those that do not handle containers.

Port stakeholders now have a ten-variable model of the factors needed to attract new customers and investors. These variables, and their tradeoffs, can evaluate the impact of managerial decisions on port competitiveness.

This study informs the literature by being the first to test a new theory that explains a greater level of port stakeholder behavior when improving competitiveness. Prior to this study, VC and investor competitiveness had only been studied separately, although they were related in practice.

This study aims at investigating how energy strategies of China impact its energy shipping import through a strategic maritime link, the Straits of Malacca and Singapore (SOMS).

Vector error-correction modelling (VECM) is applied to examine the key energy strategies of China influencing crude oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipping import via the SOMS. Strategies investigated include oil storage expansions, government-setting targets to motivate domestic gas production, pipeline projects to diversify natural gas import routes and commercial strategies to ensure oil and gas accessibility and cost-effectiveness.

For the crude oil sector, building up oil storage and diversifying oil import means, routes and sources were found effective to mitigate impacts of consumption surges and price shocks. For the LNG sector, domestic production expansion effectively reduces LNG import. However, pipeline gas import growth is inefficient to relieve LNG shipping import dependency. Furthermore, energy companies have limited flexibility to adjust LNG shipping import volumes via the SOMS even under increased import prices and transport costs.

As the natural gas demand of China continues expanding, utilisation rates of existing pipeline networks need to be enhanced. Besides, domestic production expansion and diversification of LNG import sources and means are crucial.

This study is among the first in the literature using a quantitative approach to investigate how energy strategies implemented in a nation impact its energy shipping volumes via the SOMS, which is one of the most important maritime links that support 40% of the global trades.

Seaports are vital in facilitating sustainable development, and environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors significantly impact an organization’s performance. Therefore, this study aims to identify and evaluate barriers and strategies of green investments to promote ESG practices within the seaport sector.

To fulfill this aim, a systematic literature review, interpretive structural modeling and the matrix of cross-impact multiplications were applied to classification analysis.

12 barriers were prioritized and categorized by experts in a focus group to optimize efforts and define the materiality of these barriers in implementing ESG strategies within seaport companies.

The implications of this study provide an alternative approach for ESG management in the context of seaports that can be applied in different regions by experts' opinion assessment.

No prior studies assessed the barriers and strategies for green investments in ESG from the port sector perspective.

Supply chain security has been recognized as an important part of managing business risks. The purpose of this paper is to propose a methodology with systematic metrics for logistics service providers (LSPs) to develop their security design to meet customer demands.

The study is based on a three-stage process of desk research, content validation test, and in-depth case study. The study demonstrates an integrated analytical approach which combines analytical network process (ANP) with quality function deployment (QFD), and then applies the approach to an international LSP.

A case study of an international LSP shows how the ANP-QFD approach can be deployed to understand customers’ expectation for security and develop tactics and measures with the aim to achieve the desirable outcome for LSPs’ security design.

The paper contributes to supply chain security literature and practice. This study is among the research taking the first step to use ANP-QFD to translate the customer requirements (CRs) for supply chain security into systematic metrics for LSPs to develop their security design. Results from such research into the development of security performance can benefit LSPs in terms of increasing the effectiveness and improving the customer orientation of security efforts. By extension, other firms can enhance their security design by referring to the case study and the integrated analytical method. The flexibility of this ANP-QFD approach offers leeway for firms to change the CRs and design requirements based on their unique circumstances.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a methodology with systematic metrics for logistics service providers (LSPs) to develop their environmental sustainability performance in the context of green supply chain management.

An integrated analytical approach which combines analytical network process (ANP) with quality function deployment (QFD) is proposed to develop LSPs’ environmental sustainability performance. In the approach, QFD is used to translate customer requirements (CRs) for “green” concerns into multiple criteria for LSP’s design requirements (DRs). ANP is used to analyze the inter-relationships among the various CRs and DRs.

The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated by applying it to a global LSP. A case study shows how the proposed “ANP-QFD” technique can be deployed to understand customers’ expectation for environment management and develop tactics and measures with the aim to achieve the desirable outcome for LSPs’ environmental sustainability performance.

Firms that emphasize sustainability as a competitive priority will benefit by communicating sustainability efforts to customers. Therefore, “ANP-QFD” is an integrative method which helps develop LSPs’ environmental sustainability performance by enabling logistics managers incorporate the “voice” of customers for environmental concerns into their decision-making process. The study demonstrates how to develop LSPs to be greener in order to realize the requirements of green supply chains. The proposed integrated approach can also be applied in other decision-making scenarios for effective green supply chain management.

Various approaches that can deal with multiple and conflicting criteria have been adopted for LSP assessment in the literature. However, they fail to include the impact of business objectives and the requirements of company stakeholders (customer in this study) in the identification of performance criteria for LSP. They also did not incorporate the environmental sustainability perspective. This paper contributes to the emerging research topic of environmental sustainability in logistics and supply chains by tackling these inadequacies in the literature. The study facilitates LSPs and the supply chains they serve in achieving better economic and environmental performance, thus leading to truly sustainable outcomes.

This study aims to critically review and analyse the classification of supply chain risks and disruptions and thereby suggest a suitable method for classifying maritime risks. It aims to discuss the propagation effects of port disruption on the supply chain and mitigation strategies.

In addition to secondary research, six semi-structured interviews were conducted with the management personnel of two terminal operators, two shipping lines and two insurance companies.

When a port disruption happens, the most immediate impact is the adverse effects on terminal operations. It also leads to a domino effect on other parties in the supply chain including shippers and consignees, shipping companies, inter-modal transport providers and other ports. Proper risk management needs to be embraced by the supply chain members. However, there is very little or no such collaboration between the supply chain members in practice.

This article proposes a more integrative approach in assessing various kinds of risks, and more research in this area to be done for Asia.

Risk management has been the concern for many stakeholders ranging from industry practitioners to the people who are affected by the maritime business throughout the world. The maritime industry should look into risk management in the maritime logistics and supply chain context instead of dealing with risk in isolation.

There is a serious lack of research for analysing supply chain disruptions with ports as a focal point. The paper contributes by filling the research gap.

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.

While job insecurity generally impedes performance, there may be circumstances under which it can prompt performance. The purpose of this paper is to examine a specific situation (reorganization) in which job insecurity may prompt task and contextual performance. The authors propose that performance can represent a job preservation strategy, to which employees may only resort when supervisor-issued ratings of performance are instrumental toward securing one’s job. The authors hypothesize that because of this instrumentality, job insecurity will motivate employees’ performance only when they have low intrinsic motivation, and only when they perceive high distributive justice.

In a survey study among 103 permanent employees of a company in reorganization, the authors assessed perceived job insecurity, intrinsic motivation and perceived distributive justice. Supervisors rated employees’ overall performance (task performance and organizational citizenship behaviors).

Multilevel analyses showed that job insecurity was only positively related to supervisor-rated overall performance among employees with low intrinsic motivation and, unexpectedly, among employees who experienced low distributive justice. Results were cross-validated using employees’ self-rated performance, replicating the findings on distributive justice but not the findings on intrinsic motivation.

The results can inform future research on the specific situations in which job insecurity may prompt job preservation efforts, and call for research to uncover the mechanisms underlying employees’ negative and positive responses to job insecurity. The results and associated implications of this study are largely based on conceptual evidence. In addition, the cross-sectional design warrants precaution about drawing causal inferences from the data.

By combining insights from coping responses and threat foci, this study advances the understanding of when and why job insecurity may prompt performance.