Activities, resources and inter-organisational relationships: key factors in the Port competitiveness

In the last decade, the port economics literature has given great emphasis to the Supply Chain Management approach as the new paradigm for the definition of port competitiveness. SCM supports the development of partnerships between the actors of the supply chain and considers the integration of activities and resources along business processes as source of competitive advantage. Nevertheless, the application of SCM approach to the port is particularly complex given the traditional hostile relationships between port actors. In the effort to overcome such complexity, some authors have considered ports as Logistics Service Providers and interpreted their role within supply chains through the integrative practices undertaken by Global Players – mainly Shipping Companies and Terminal Operators – in the supply of integrated logistics services. Even tough these actors are crucial for the port competitiveness, they determine a passive role of port in the new competitive scenario. The definition of a potential and pro-active role of port in the supply chains is the objective of this paper that presents, through a literature review on SCM and port competitiveness, a new framework for port competitiveness. According to this framework, that is based on the value constellation concept value is generated by joint effort of port actors in the satisfaction of clients’ needs, through the exploitation of different interdependencies (serial, pooled and reciprocal) between supply chains. In this context, Port Authority has a fundamental role in identifying those resources – the so called critical assets – that encourage the development of interorganisational relationships between port actors in the value generation process.