Sharing Economics and the Innovation of Asian Shipping and Logistics Industry

Abstract

ICASL is an annual international event to provide a platform for professionals working in ports, shipping, aviation transportation, and logistics to exchange knowledge and expertise and to share their latest research results. The theme of the 2016 conference was “Sharing Economics and the Innovation of Asian Shipping and Logistics Industry”. The sub-issues were related to issues of sharing economics in Asian countries, maritime shipping, supply chain management and logistics, sea transport and transportation technology, and recent trends and future perspectives for logistics and sea transport in Asia. The 9th International Conference of Asian Shipping and Logistics (ICASL 2016) was held on July 6–9, 2016 in Keelung, Taiwan. The conference was jointly organized by the Korean Association of Shipping and Logistics, Inc., the China Maritime Institute, the Chinese Maritime Research Institute, and the National Taiwan Ocean University.

In this issue, cluster of four papers stem from articles presented in the ICASL 2016 held in Keelung in 2016. Over 22 papers were presented in the conference, and based on the recommendations of the editorial panel, 8 manuscripts were shortlisted. The authors of shortlisted papers were invited to submit expanded full manuscripts to go through the journal peer review process. As a result, based on the AJSL peer review process, four papers were finally accepted for publication for the June 2017 issue of this journal. The first two papers have a microeconomic and operational perspective, whereas the third and fourth papers have a macroeconomic and strategic angle, providing significant contributions to the diversified management issues relevant to modern shipping and logistics practices.

The first and second papers investigate the variables influencing the profit and the relationship between firm values and the Altman Z-Score Bankruptcy Predictor from the viewpoints of Korean shipping companies and logistics operators. In the first paper, Ha and Seo employ regression and ANOVA techniques to examine the liner shipping companies’ profit, and to see if there are any differences of profits depending upon the shipping routes in which they are specializing. The container shipping company's net profit and the profit rate are used as the dependent variables. The freight rate, the bunker price, the average vessel size, the ratio of the chartered vessels, the specialised shipping routes, and other firm-specific factors are used as the independent variables. The ANOVA research findings indicate that the route specialization has affected the company's profit margin in the three major liner shipping routes, namely, Asia route, the Europe route, and America route. The regression research findings reveal that the freight rate has a statistically significant positive impact on the liner shipping companies’ profits while the bunker price has a negative influence on shipping companies’ profit. The second paper, authored by Nam H.J. and An Y., investigates the default risk of shipping and logistics firms and several independent financial variables, including total assets, total sales/total assets, retained earnings/total assets, and net equity/total assets. Firm value is represented by return on assets, which are measured by Altman's K-Score, leverage ratio, natural log of total assets, and two dummy variables. Research findings indicate that there is a significant statistical relationship between default risk and firm value, and the Altman's K-Score model can be used as a major criterion to predict the default risk on Korean shipping and logistics companies.

The third and fourth papers represent two studies related to container port efficiency measurement in the ASEAN and other regions, and the maritime network efficiency measurement in the existing network in Indonesia. The purpose of the study by Kutin, Nguyen, and Vallée is to analyse the relative efficiency of 22 ASEAN and 17 non-ASEAN container ports using DEA-CCR and DEA-BCC models. The research findings revealed that the investigated ports operate in increasing returns to scale, which suggests that they have not reached their optimum size. The main issue of the ASEAN ports is their scale of production and the scale inefficiency they experience. The main factor of this inefficiency is their size and space limits. On the other hand, non-ASEAN ports are characterized by good scale efficiency. Hong Kong is found to be a benchmark for 28 inefficient ports. The last paper, co-authored by Fahmiasari and Parikesit, compares and analyses the network efficiency between three east-west maritime networks in Indonesia: the Nusantara Pendulum network, the Sea Tollway network, and the current multi-legs network. The two main methods that are used to analyse the network efficiency are the Nagurney-Qiang and Jenelius-Peterson-Mattson methods. They calculate the maritime network efficiency by considering the parameters of demand (goods flow) between all the regions and the maritime transportation cost. Sorong is found to be the least important node in the network due to its thin traffic volume.

In summary, this cluster of papers addresses Asian shipping and logistics issues by analysing the competiveness of leading liner shipping companies, comparing the efficiency difference between the ASEAN and non-ASEAN container ports, providing models to measure firm value and estimate the default risk for shipping and logistics firms, and finally, examining the maritime network efficiency in Indonesia. The papers presented in this issue provide innovative methodologies to investigate current shipping and logistics issues, and ultimately, they can be used to improve modern logistics and shipping practices from the Asian perspective.