New Maritime Business

This book provides a response to the unexpected challenges imposed on every aspect of today’s maritime business. All chapters of this book are concerned with the single challenge facing the maritime business world – that is, uncertainty. Each chapter deals with a specific area of the maritime business community in an effort to better understand the complicated markets, to seek for a solution of economic or financial sustainability under the pressure of climate changes, to discuss technology as an option for the future, and finally to show how to utilise the big data set for better informed decision- and policymaking that used to be unfeasible in terms of scale and capacity. It is hoped that all those endeavours are considered as the first small step towards practically transforming the industry in line with Schumpeter (1943) as well as academically changing a paradigm of thinking and scientific discovery in line with Kuhn (2012), so that the maritime industry is better informed and prepared, and can greatly contributing to human lives.

Byoung-Wook Ko is director of Shipping Policy Research Department at the Korea Maritime Institute. Dr Ko holds BA, MA, and PhD degrees from the Department of Economics, Korea University, Republic of Korea. His main research interests include an econometrics-based analysis on markets, industrial policy, and strategy, seaborne trade in shipping and shipbuilding industries, and shipping finance. He won the STX Prize Award in 2011 for one of his papers: “A Mixed-Regime Model for Dry Bulk Freight Market” (2010) selected by the editorial board of the Asian Journal of Shipping and Logistics. He has worked for the Korean government on shipping industrial policy design and evaluation, and has also been providing consulting services to market participants in Korean shipping ecosystems such as shipping firms, associations, financial institutes, shippers, and so forth. He is currently serving as a member of the editorial board of KMI International Journal of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries. Among his research works, the paper “The nationality effect from price discrimination in the container shipping market and the implications for development economics: Treating Hanjin Shipping’s collapse as a natural experiment” (2020), published in Journal of Korea Trade, has been well received and regarded as an important contribution to the global governance design in container shipping markets. In addition, another paper of his, “Dynamic patterns of dry bulk freight spot rates through the lens of a time-varying coefficient model” (2018), appeared in Transportation Research Part A, is considered a path-breaking article as for its econometric treatment of shipping sectors’ empirics. While keeping the above research interests under his research umbrella, he has recently made an endeavour towards understanding knowledge components in shipping ecosystems as an emerging research topic with practicality in mind.

Dong-Wook Song is professorof maritime economics and logistics and Korean chair in maritime affairs at the World Maritime University, Sweden. Prior to the current post, he worked at universities in the UK and Hong Kong. Professor Song holds a BA (Hons) with first class in shipping management from Korea Maritime University, an MSc in international shipping and logistics, and a PhD in maritime economics and logistics from the University of Plymouth, UK. He also attended an industrial economics course at the London School of Economics. He is currently editor-in-chief of WMU Journal of Maritime Affairs and sits on editorial boards of highly regarded transport and logistics journals. He has worked as a consultant for a number of private and public organisations including the UN, OECD, Asian Development Bank, and World Bank. Professor Song served the International Association of Maritime Economists, a premier academic association in the field of maritime transport and logistics, as an elected council member for 12 years (2004–2010; 2012–2018), being among the longest serving council members for the association. One of his co-authored papers in 2006 has been recently enlisted by Google Scholar (2017) as a classic paper in the entire field of transportation. In addition, an article in “Transport Reviews” (2013) shows that his works in port research are highly ranked – among the top listed over the last three decades (1980–2009). Another article in Maritime Policy and Management (2013) lists his two papers, published in 2003 and 2002, are among the top 30 most cited papers over the entire 40-year history of the journal (1973–2013). His prolific but impact-bearing refereed publications are a product of his keen interest in managerial and strategic aspects of global shipping, port, and logistics. See the citation index for more of his research works.