The impact of organizational culture and strategy on shipping liner’s awareness and utilization of the 4th IR technologies

When the industry is busy seeking ways to exploit the 4th IR to create added value, how should an organization prepare internally for bringing the common goal to fruition? This research studies the suitable organizational culture and strategy that enables an organization to be swiftly cognizant of external changes; as well as efficiently respond to the trend. Organizational culture and strategy types are identified and differences in the degree of awareness and utilization of 4th IR technologies according to the types are examined by ANOVA across 38 liner shipping companies that call at Busan Port. In addition, this study examines the future prospects of available technologies, business services, and partners with the progress of 4th IR. The empirical result shows that organization which is oriented based on developmental or rational culture and prospector strategy is expected to take lead in 4th IR, with both high mean value and statistical significance observed. This study emphasizes that for shipping companies to actively introduce and utilize the 4th IR technologies in response to environmental changes, it is necessary to manage or transform their organizational culture into the developmental or rational culture, and organizational strategy into prospector strategy.