Port industry performance management: a meso-level gap in literature and practice?

Abstract

Over the past decades, literature has been focusing increasingly on performance management. A great deal of studies have pointed out that performance management has evolved from mere financial measurements to a multitude of indicators, and that the subject being measured can range from micro-level (an organisation), meso-level (industry) to macro-level (regional or national) performance. The authors will research which academic literature has focused on the performance measurement and management of the meso-level and how that is translated in practice, with special attention for the port industry. In practice, the authors observe that mostly so-called ‘observatories’ are responsible for monitoring the performance of infrastructure industries. Within this context the authors will examine the cooperative efforts of the past 20 years between universities and the European port industry. Based on this analysis, research and policy recommendations will be made on industry performance management, with specific consideration for port industry performance management.

Keywords:

• performance management
• stakeholder
• industry level
• meso-level
• port industry
• literature review

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. An autopoietic network is a network that can self-regulate through its interactions and relations with its components. Autopoiesis literally means ‘self-making’ (Bititci et al. 2012).

2. The International Journal of Transport Economics was not enlisted as a journal in the PortEconomics (2012) quality acknowledged maritime journals.

3. Initially, the control step resulted in seven additional research papers to include in our sample; however, the paper of Odeck and Bråthen (2012) contained a meta-analysis based on 40 studies. Therefore, this paper was excluded from the sample, as it did not discuss a new approach for performance measurement and/or management applied on the port industry.

Additional information

Funding

This research was made possible through a grant awarded under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7, now replaced by Horizon 2020 Programme) provided by the European Commission.