PurposeThis study aims to evaluate cargo and eco-efficiency of global container shipping companies (CSCs) and explore the determinants of the CSCs' efficiencies. While the former is derived from the CSCs' operational perspective, the latter highlights environmental issue related to carbon emission reduction.Design/methodology/approachIn the first stage, a two-stage double bootstrap approach of data envelopment analysis (DEA) is applied to derive bias-corrected cargo and eco-efficiency of the top ten global CSCs under the variable returns to scale assumption. In the second stage, ordinary least squares and truncated regression are applied to examine determinants of the CSCs' efficiencies.FindingsThe DEA results reveal that the cargo efficiency of the CSCs is higher than their eco-efficiency by about 2.6% under variable returns to scale in DEA. However, the bias-corrected results show that the difference is 2.9%. The overall average efficiencies suggest that the CSCs can improve their cargo (eco) efficiency by 6.9% (10.8%). In the second stage, the regression results show that the numbers of ship, return on assets and asset turnover ratio are significantly related to both cargo and eco-efficiencies, whereas the total fleet capacity positively affects cargo efficiency.Research limitations/implicationsThe results of this study can help the inefficient CSCs make strategic decisions to improve their performance. For example, their business experience and capacity may be contributing to their efficiencies. However, this study only focuses on the container market among the three main markets, namely, dry bulk, wet bulk and container.Originality/valueThis study highlights an environmental issue in the shipping industry. While CSCs are operating their cargo efficiently in general, they should also put green initiatives into their business operations for the long-term sustainability.
A plethora of present studies has the purpose of analyzing the connection related to the effect of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) on business performance. However, it has still not been able to bring out comprehensive results because of using a single metric to measure performance. Due to that, this research will: (i) use the data envelopment analysis (DEA) method to measure transportation firms’ performance and (ii) use OLS regression to explore the relationship between ESG combined score and business performance. In the first stage, we found out that 43 out of 56 firms work inefficiently. The managers of those companies should utilize their resources and refer to the benchmarking as a sample to follow. The environmental and social scores positively affect business performance in the second stage. Thus, managers should consider ESG as an investment, primarily when transportation is categorized as an “environmentally sensitive industry”. Besides, investors should pay more attention to a company that has ESG activities because that firm has the chance to improve its business performance and deal with its commitments.
This study aims to evaluate the cargo and eco-efficiencies of international container shipping companies (CSCs) for the period 2013-2017 for benchmarking purposes. An integration of two-stage network directional distance function and networkbased approach in data envelopment analysis is utilized to distinguish the efficient operators. Results show that most CSCs are highly ranked in the cargo efficiency stage but lowly ranked in the eco-efficiency stage and vice versa. This study emphasizes the strengths and weaknesses of each factor of every CSC. Results can help the inefficient CSCs find the areas for improvement by learning from their peers.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.