The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)
officially outlined a three-generation model to classify different stages that port
industry has experienced (UNCTAD, 1992). In the first generation, port was rather
isolated from trade activities and its development was totally under the municipal
authority. Port performance in this stage has barely influence on economic
development when economies at that time were highly closed. This stage, later in
1960s, was ended when commercial trades became active in cross borders with raw
material and finished goods transported internationally. So in the second stage, port is
no longer a public infrastructure but also playing a key role for private commercial
activities. During this stage, there is a global trend that private actors have been
taking place of public actors on port operation due to the serious concern over low
port productivity. Such development force created by the private participation has
escalated the resource base of port industry and largely promoted the port evolution,
which significantly distinguishes the first and the second generations. The third
generation rose due to the break of containerisation which precipitated specialization.
Terminals, dedicated for container services, have experienced a fast growth since its
birth in 1980s. To sum up, port evolution is not a linear progress but periodically with
key events to restart every stage.
What arouses the interest of this study towards the above three-generation
model is whether port industry has involved to the new generation or not. With this
question, this study reviews previous literature on port strategic management, and it
turns out that port has evolved its organization since its third generation. Various
previous studies have dedicated their efforts in investigating the stages of port
evolution, and each of them have a specific angle looking into this issue, such as the
impact of technologic advancement (WORKPORT, 2000) as well as the emergence
of global terminal operators (UNCTAD, 1999). During reviewing their work, this
study finds that organizational evolution occurs and be documented in previous
studies only with different emphases on the disparity of port evolving strategies. In
other words, they were discussing about different aspects of the same new generation
which does not necessarily define ordinary sequence for each aspect in the evolution.
Concerning this complexity of the port evolution, this study adopts the resourcebased
view (RBV) as the theoretical tool for case study regarding the research
question on the port evolution issue.
There are two fundamental reasons for this study to build the theoretical base
ahead of the case study. Firstly, the theoretical base can help the understanding of
port evolution issue. Despite of difference in strategies, terminal operators, like other
entities taking the corporation form, behave following certain rules under the
description of previously well-defined theories and the RBV is one of the significant
theories in explaining organizational behaviour. Through this theoretical framework,
it is possible to draw out implications from the analysis which suits the case of other port companies in the industry. Secondly, apart from applying the theory as the
analytic tool, this study also contributes to improve the theory with a dynamic feature
incorporated the institutionalism, which is usually independent from the RBV in
explaining power. This study has managed a way to integrate the two theoretical
frameworks and creates a new Advanced RBV with explanatory power not being
possessed by the two independent theories before, such as the source to generate
innovation within the organization during the evolution. Even the resource base
remains the same firm still can possess innovation ability if it is willing to jump out
of the comfort zone which is usually delimited by institutions formed in the past,
which forms the core of proposition 3 when the other propositions, 1 and 2, are
generated from the classical RBV and the dynamic RBV respectively. In this respect,
this study also uses the case to contribute to the theorization. In other words, rather
than simply applying the theory, this study also contributes to the theory itself with
the evidence of the case in terminal industry for the contribution.
To address the research question and examine the conceptual framework, this
study takes Hongkong International Terminals (HIT) for case analysis. After the indepth
investigation, a changing stage is proved to be existed with the comparison
between the pre- and post-stages, which endorse the point that the third-generation
model is no longer capable to describe port development, and. With the evidence in
the investigation, the discussion chapters answer the research questions raised in
introduction chapter with 1) the 4-pillar model for "what is the new generation
question, 2) the process of the terminal conducting "periphery shift" and "boundary shift" for "how port evolves" question and 3) the importance of "proactivity" that the
new theory contributes to port companies during evolution.
To sum up, this study makes the contribution to both the application of the
RBV theory in port industry as well as the improvement of the theory itself. Besides
the theoretical contribution, this study also gives suggestions to both governments
and terminal operators. For governments, the less participation in port operation
activities does not necessarily compromise their role in supervision, especially for the
security factor. On the other side, it is essential for GTOs to make use of its abundant
resource to conduct innovative activities. GTOs, comparing with other actors, have
the initiative for innovation and also the one with such capability. If GTOs do not
take this action, it will be dangerous for terminal industry to keep its energy and
generate welfare for economy and society.
| Date of Award | 3 Oct 2014 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Awarding Institution | - City University of Hong Kong
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| Supervisor | Yer Van HUI (Supervisor) |
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