Innovation in Seaports: an inter-organisational perspective

Seaports are heterogeneous and dynamic entities in which public and private undertakings interact for satisfying different and often conflicting interests, where the availability of tangible and intangible resources determine the extent of the competition and where activities can spam from the handling of cargo to the more sophisticated and complex value added logistics. As such, seaports provide an interesting research context in which technological and social innovations determine the competitiveness of both firms involved in process of service production and the regional and national economic systems. The strong interdependence among firms within the port itself and those of the local economic system (hinterland) increases the importance of the research field of the inter-organisational relationships, and in particular of the Supply Chain Management (SCM) approach, for the innovation in seaports. The paper, of theoretical nature, aimed at contributing to the knowledge advancement on innovation in seaports by adopting a inter-organisational perspective. To this end, starting form the gap arisen form the literature review on ports studies and SCM, the paper proposes three configuration of port service supply chains; these chains reflects the importance of the port in the process of innovation through an increasingly complex set of services, the involvement of a growing number of specialized actors and the use and combination of a broader typology of resources. Some solutions and recommendations for innovation in ports are provided, followed by future research directions and concluding remarks.