Strategic flexibility capabilities in the container liner shipping sector

This paper aims to develop the construct of freight transport flexibility. Specifically, it explores the notion of freight transport flexibility from the perspective of the major liner operators in the container shipping industry. The research is designed around a structured methodology to system enquiry, namely the ‘understand, document, simplify, optimise’ (UDSO) approach. Within this, the method deployed to examine the freight transport flexibility construct is through the conduct of a series of semi-structured interviews with senior directors of three leading global container liner shipping companies, combined with an analysis of authoritative data sourced from across the industry. The study builds on the literature that categorises flexibility strategies in freight transport and examines, from the providers’ perspective, supply side flexibility capabilities that may be strategically deployed to maintain the stability of the maritime component in the international supply chain. For practitioners, the revised theoretical typology provides a tool that can be used by management in the container liner shipping sector to strategically examine their approach to flexibility tactics to restore equilibrium to the major imbalance in demand for container movement and the supply of vessel carrying capacity.