Coopetition in international maritime shipping

Abstract

The increasingly competitive nature of maritime freight transport has stimulated carriers to improve efficiency and lower costs. The industry has gradually matured, and it has recently become the case that the larger a carrier is, the more competitive advantage it has. Therefore, carriers form strategic alliances to collaborate with each other so that they can reduce their operational costs due to economies of scale. At the same time, such alliances allow carriers to improve the quality of their service by increasing their network coverage. Although carriers collaborate to improve their operational efficiency, they compete with each other simultaneously. In other words, a game of coopetition among carriers has developed in international maritime freight transport in recent years. In this study, we propose a theoretical framework for characterizing coopetition in international maritime shipping and investigating how carriers can manage their business models. Empirical studies, together with salient analytical results, are presented and discussed.