Investigating the strategies for Australian regional ports' involvement in regional development

Abstract

The growth of regional ports (in sub-national context) and their host regions is conditional upon one another. A regional port requires a vision for growing its business as well as its region. To achieve this goal, it is essential for regional ports to initiate effective strategies. This paper explores the pertinent factors and strategic initiatives for effective involvement of Australian regional ports in regional development through a questionnaire survey to Australian regional port stakeholders. Using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, this study suggests that Australian regional ports undertake multiple strategies when involved in regional development, including collaboration to create supply chain efficiency, collaboration with regional organisations for regional growth, playing a proactive role in the regional innovation system, and being pro-active for port's environmental and social responsibility.

A Systematic Review of Eco-Innovation and Performance from the Resource-Based and Stakeholder Perspectives

“…Hence, environmental innovativeness is another important frontier, as environmental issues become increasingly prominent [52,53]. As organizations become more pro-active in addressing environmental concerns, environmental innovativeness becomes an increasingly important capability [54,55]. This is because environmental innovativeness presents organizations state-of-the-art problem solving vis-à-vis the implementation of eco-initiatives [12].…”

Defining a Social Role for Ports: Managers’ Perspectives on Whats and Whys

“…The literature adds more about the social roles of ports by including a reference to their role in regional development [35,[45][46][47][48][49][50], with ([27], p. 2) providing an example of how ports can "rise the welfare of citizens, enhancing social welfare in terms of income, employment, living environment, security and other aspects (macro-economic or social dimension)". The view of the ports as social developers includes different phases of port development.…”

The role of seaports in regional development in the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia: An evaluation through an exploratory factor analysis

“…When it comes to regional development, seaports employ a variety of techniques (Sakalayen, Chen & Cahoon 2016). Those techniques include association to create supply chain efficiency, collaboration with regional organisations for regional growth, proactive role in the regional innovation system and port's environmental and social responsibility.…”

“…They can benefit the economy by boosting the volume of shipping generated in a given region. Increased production volume should attract additional investment to the region, which, depending on government policy, should increase the number of available jobs and lower the area's overall unemployment rate (Sakalayen et al 2016(Sakalayen et al , 2017.…”