The adoption of open platform for container bookings in the maritime supply chain

Abstract

Information systems and technologies (IST) have been playing increasingly crucial roles in supporting the smooth running of maritime supply chain operations. The degree of acceptance of IST within the maritime sector as a whole, however, remains fragmented and variable. Some IST products and platforms have entered the market and gained a broad market share, while others are still struggling. This study, based on twenty-five cases, aims to investigate the adoption of IST in a range of organizations in the maritime shipping supply chain. Open platform, a concept first introduced by Maersk Line and IBM in 2018 for inter-organizational information sharing for the maritime supply chain, is used as an exemplar for this study. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies to conduct a chain-level analysis of IST adoption within the maritime transportation context. The results suggest that the adoption of inter-organizational information systems is largely affected by factors such as industry characteristics, the system’s information confidentiality, supply chain trade partners’ power, governmental power, and the ownership structure of the organization, among others. Furthermore, these factors have varying degrees of impact across the various organizational tiers in the maritime supply chain, e.g., information confidentiality mainly influences the adoption of forwarders. This study provides broad insights that will be of interest to both the researchers and practitioners in the maritime supply chain, in which the acceleration of digitalization is expected.