IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/zna/indecs/v10y2012i1p1-15.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Review of the Maritime Container Shipping Industry as a Complex Adaptive System

Author

Listed:
  • Simone Caschili

    (UCL QASER LAB, University College London)

  • Francesca Romana Medda

    (Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London)

Abstract

If we consider the worldwide maritime shipping industry as a system, we observe that a large number of independent rational agents such as port authorities, shipping service providers, shipping companies, and commodity producers play a role in achieving predominant positions and in increasing market share. The maritime shipping industry can, from this perspective, be defined as a Complex System composed of relatively independent parts that constantly search, learn and adapt to their environment, while their mutual interactions shape obscure but recognizable patterns. In this work we examine the maritime shipping industry through the Complex Adaptive System (CAS). Although CAS has been applied widely to the study of biological and social systems, its application in maritime shipping is scant. Therefore, our objective in the present paper is to provide a literature review that examines the international maritime industry through the lens of CAS. We also present some of the goals that may be achieved by applying the CAS approach to the container shipping industry in particular. The construction of a tenable ontological framework will give scholars a comprehensive view of the maritime industry and allow them to test the stability and efficiency of the framework to endogenous and exogenous shocks.

Suggested Citation

  • Simone Caschili & Francesca Romana Medda, 2012. "A Review of the Maritime Container Shipping Industry as a Complex Adaptive System," Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems - scientific journal, Croatian Interdisciplinary Society Provider Homepage: http://indecs.eu, vol. 10(1), pages 1-15.
  • Handle: RePEc:zna:indecs:v:10:y:2012:i:1:p:1-15
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://indecs.eu/2012/indecs2012-pp1-15.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sheri M. Markose, 2005. "Computability and Evolutionary Complexity: Markets as Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS)," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(504), pages 159-192, June.
    2. César Ducruet & Sung-Woo Lee & Adolf K.Y. Ng, 2010. "Centrality and vulnerability in liner shipping networks: revisiting the Northeast Asian port hierarchy," Maritime Policy & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(1), pages 17-36, January.
    3. Ron Martin & Peter Sunley, 2010. "Complexity Thinking and Evolutionary Economic Geography," Chapters, in: Ron Boschma & Ron Martin (ed.), The Handbook of Evolutionary Economic Geography, chapter 4, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Robert McCalla * & Brian Slack & Claude Comtois, 2005. "The Caribbean basin: adjusting to global trends in containerization," Maritime Policy & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(3), pages 245-261, July.
    5. Peter A. G. Van Bergeijk & Jan Marc Berk, 2001. "European Monetary Union, the Term Structure, and the Lucas Critique," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(4), pages 547-556, November.
    6. Bill McKelvey, 2004. "Toward a 0-super-th Law of Thermodynamics: Order-Creation Complexity Dynamics from Physics and Biology to Bioeconomics," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 6(1), pages 65-96.
    7. David Glen & Peter Marlow, 2009. "Maritime Statistics: a new forum for practitioners," Maritime Policy & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(2), pages 185-195, April.
    8. César Ducruet & Sung-Woo Lee & Adolf Ng, 2010. "Centrality and vulnerability in liner shipping networks : revisiting the Northeast Asian port hierarchy," Post-Print hal-03246966, HAL.
    9. John Foster, 2005. "From simplistic to complex systems in economics," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 29(6), pages 873-892, November.
    10. Keshavarz, Nastaran & Nutbeam, Don & Rowling, Louise & Khavarpour, Freidoon, 2010. "Schools as social complex adaptive systems: A new way to understand the challenges of introducing the health promoting schools concept," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(10), pages 1467-1474, May.
    11. Notteboom Theo E., 2004. "Container Shipping And Ports: An Overview," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 3(2), pages 1-21, June.
    12. repec:bla:kyklos:v:54:y:2001:i:4:p:547-56 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Lucas, Robert Jr, 1976. "Econometric policy evaluation: A critique," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 19-46, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dongping Song, 2021. "A Literature Review, Container Shipping Supply Chain: Planning Problems and Research Opportunities," Logistics, MDPI, vol. 5(2), pages 1-26, June.
    2. Carine Dominguez-Péry & Lakshmi Narasimha Raju Vuddaraju & Isabelle Corbett-Etchevers & Rana Tassabehji, 2021. "Reducing maritime accidents in ships by tackling human error: a bibliometric review and research agenda," Journal of Shipping and Trade, Springer, vol. 6(1), pages 1-32, December.
    3. Marco FUGAZZA & Jan HOFFMANN & Rado RAZAFINOMBANA, 2015. "Building A Dataset For Bilateral Maritime Connectivity," Region et Developpement, Region et Developpement, LEAD, Universite du Sud - Toulon Var, vol. 41, pages 101-124.
    4. Nicanor García Álvarez & Belarmino Adenso-Díaz & Laura Calzada-Infante, 2021. "Maritime Traffic as a Complex Network: a Systematic Review," Networks and Spatial Economics, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 387-417, June.
    5. Viljoen, Nadia M. & Joubert, Johan W., 2016. "The vulnerability of the global container shipping network to targeted link disruption," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 462(C), pages 396-409.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ducruet, César & Rozenblat, Céline & Zaidi, Faraz, 2010. "Ports in multi-level maritime networks: evidence from the Atlantic (1996–2006)," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 508-518.
    2. Nguyen Tran & Hans-Dietrich Haasis, 2014. "Empirical analysis of the container liner shipping network on the East-West corridor (1995–2011)," Netnomics, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 121-153, November.
    3. Xu, Mengqiao & Li, Zhenfu & Shi, Yanlei & Zhang, Xiaoling & Jiang, Shufei, 2015. "Evolution of regional inequality in the global shipping network," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 1-12.
    4. Tocchi, Daniela & Sys, Christa & Papola, Andrea & Tinessa, Fiore & Simonelli, Fulvio & Marzano, Vittorio, 2022. "Hypergraph-based centrality metrics for maritime container service networks: A worldwide application," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    5. González Laxe, Fernando & Jesus Freire Seoane, Maria & Pais Montes, Carlos, 2012. "Maritime degree, centrality and vulnerability: port hierarchies and emerging areas in containerized transport (2008–2010)," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 33-44.
    6. César Ducruet, 2020. "The geography of maritime networks: A critical review," Post-Print halshs-02922543, HAL.
    7. Tovar, Beatriz & Hernández, Rubén & Rodríguez-Déniz, Héctor, 2015. "Container port competitiveness and connectivity: The Canary Islands main ports case," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 40-51.
    8. Liquan Guo & Zhongzhen Yang, 2018. "Evaluation of foreign trade transport accessibility for Mainland China," Maritime Policy & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(1), pages 34-52, January.
    9. Wang, Wenya & Li, Zhenfu & Cheng, Xin, 2019. "Evolution of the global coal trade network: A complex network analysis," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 496-506.
    10. Yao He & Yongchun Yang & Meimei Wang & Xudong Zhang, 2022. "Resilience Analysis of Container Port Shipping Network Structure: The Case of China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-17, August.
    11. Zhao, Qianyu & Xu, Hang & Wall, Ronald S & Stavropoulos, Spyridon, 2017. "Building a bridge between port and city: Improving the urban competitiveness of port cities," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 120-133.
    12. Chengjin Wang & César Ducruet, 2012. "New port development and global city making: Emergence of the Shanghai-Yangshan multilayered gateway hub," Post-Print halshs-00717879, HAL.
    13. Tsekeris, Theodore, 2016. "Interregional trade network analysis for road freight transport in Greece," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 132-148.
    14. Foster, John, 2011. "Energy, aesthetics and knowledge in complex economic systems," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 88-100.
    15. James Derbyshire, 2020. "Answers to questions on uncertainty in geography: Old lessons and new scenario tools," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 52(4), pages 710-727, June.
    16. Dadashpoor, Hashem & Arasteh, Mojtaba, 2020. "Core-port connectivity: Towards shaping a national hinterland in a West Asia country," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 57-68.
    17. Fontana, Magda, 2010. "Can neoclassical economics handle complexity? The fallacy of the oil spot dynamic," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(3), pages 584-596, December.
    18. Viljoen, Nadia M. & Joubert, Johan W., 2016. "The vulnerability of the global container shipping network to targeted link disruption," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 462(C), pages 396-409.
    19. Zhang, Qiang & Pu, Shunhao & Luo, Lihua & Liu, Zhichao & Xu, Jie, 2022. "Revisiting important ports in container shipping networks: A structural hole-based approach," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 239-248.
    20. Freire Seoane, Maria Jesus & González Laxe, Fernando & Pais Montes, Carlos, 2013. "Foreland determination for containership and general cargo ports in Europe (2007–2011)," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 56-67.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    international trade; maritime container shipping industry; complex adaptive systems;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F10 - International Economics - - Trade - - - General
    • B52 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary; Modern Monetary Theory;
    • O18 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zna:indecs:v:10:y:2012:i:1:p:1-15. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Josip Stepanic (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.