Trajectory of research on maritime transportation in the era of digitization
Benchmarking: An International Journal
ISSN: 1463-5771
Article publication date: 29 April 2021
Issue publication date: 14 January 2022
Abstract
Purpose
The literature on Maritime Transportation (MT) is experiencing a transition phase where the focus of the research is repositioning. It registered steep growth in recent years with its beginning articles on the concepts of cost minimization to the current focus on achieving sustainable operational effectiveness using Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Thus, this becomes a right time to investigate the trajectory of research on MT.
Design/methodology/approach
The proposed study aims to explore the potential of data analytics techniques such as data mining and network analytics to reflect the trajectory of research in the maritime supply chain over time. This study identifies the eight main dimensions of the research published under maritime paradigm through network analytics. The in-depth review of these dimensions rendered us to segregate them further into sub-dimensions for the ease of understanding and interpretability. Further, the text mining is employed to extract thematic evolution of the research.
Findings
The evolved themes are completely exclusive from the conventional MT research with artificial intelligence, digital storage, waste management and biofuels emerging as contemporary themes. It is found that although there are a sufficient amount of literature on sustainable port practices but their policy implications are still underexplored. The inter-dimension research is needed to achieve the motive of economic efficiency and environmental sustainability simultaneously.
Originality/value
The study has contributed on the methodology side of conducting literature reviews. The dimensions, sub-dimensions and themes are obtained using data analytics tools and techniques. This omits the possibility of personal bias and thus making the results verifiable.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the UGC-UKIERI under grant number RP03411. Authors would like to thank Prof. P. Vigneswara Ilavarasan, Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, for helping us to finalize the project. Sushil Punia acknowledges the infrastructural support provided by the FORE School of Management, New Delhi in completing this work.
Citation
Shankar, S., Punia, S., Singh, S.P. and Dong, J. (2022), "Trajectory of research on maritime transportation in the era of digitization", Benchmarking: An International Journal, Vol. 29 No. 1, pp. 194-216. https://doi.org/10.1108/BIJ-05-2020-0272
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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