Research On The Mechanism Of Harmonious Network Of Port Enterprises And The Influence On Growing Performance

With the increasingly deep opening to the outside world, the continuous development of China's economy and foreign trade brought huge market opportunities well as fierce competition for port enterprises. During the competition, some problems were exposed, especially the mismatch in the port economic, the disordered competition and the redundant construction among port enterprises. In this context, coordinating the relationships with other enterprises or organizations and promoting the harmonious development of the port enterprise is suppoed to be an important way to solve the current problems in the port enterprises.Taken the networking characteristics of the port enterpeises as the starting point, based on the detailed analysis of the relationships between port enterprises and other enterprises or organization, this study found that more and more port business obtained the growth of firms through the external network and the external network became to one of the main access to seeking resources, thus this study put forward the definition of harmonious management of port enterprises based on the network theory. In this study, samples are the port enterprises in China; the dependent variables are network structure and network relation, the independent variable is the growth performance of port enterprises, and the mediating variables are three kinds of network capbilities. The research purpose is to analyse the coupling mechanism in the harmonious management based on enterprises'network. This topic is not only important for improving the harmonious management theory and the network theory, but also important for the development of port enterprises and port industry.Our research integrated theoretical and empirecal methods to ensure the significance of theory and practitice. Through theoretical deduction and social observation, this study built the analytical framework, conceptual models and assumptions; through focus group interviews, indicator design, small-scale pre-study questionnaire and large-scale formal investigation and other methods, this study collected the data; made statistical analysis and hypothesis-testing to 105 port enterprises based on questionnare investigation; through the statistical analysis and hypothesis testing, this study carried out the empirical study; through a typical case study, this research investigated the status of the port enterprises'development and built a harmonious management mechanism.This study resolved three major issues. The first, defining the harmonious management of port enterprises. Using the paradigm of harmonious management to indentify the theme and content of port enterprises'harmonious management. The second, analyzing the coupling machnism in the harmonious management of port enterprises. This study invested how the network and network capbilities coupled in the growth performance. The third, building the harmonious management mechanism. This study suggested that the port enterprises should build the "He Principles"and "Xie Principle" from the views of improving the network and enhancing the network capbilities.The research drew four main conclusions. First, the harmonious management of port enterprises should start from their networks. The network is the important access to external resources by economic ways; no enterprises can survive without network, especially the port enterprises which rely heavily on external resources. Therefore, by combing the network theory and harmonious management theory, this study pointed out the hamonnious management of port enterprises was the coupling of the network and network capbilities in the growth performance, HeXie theme was the growth of the port enterprises, the He Principle was the principles of improving the network and the Xie Principle was the principles of enhancing the network capbilities.Second, the enterprise network is an important factor affecting enterprises' growth. Refering to "structure-relation" paradigm in the network analysis, this study invested the relationship between the port enterprises' network and their growth performance. Empirical studies showed that most of assumptions were confirmed. In the three characterics of network structure, the positive relationships between network size, network density, network heterogeneity and the growth performance were verified. In the three characterics of network relation, the positive relationships between the diversity of first order network, network intensity, the durability of second order network and the growth performance were verified. The positive relationships between the diversity of second order network, the durability of first order network and the growth performance were not verified.Third, the mediating impact of network capacity on the relationship between the network and the growth performance were partially confirmed. Empirical studies showed the network capability of port enterprises was low; the consciousness of network visioning is weak. Most of the relationships constructed by port enterprises are the homogeneity, which limited the entry of new resource and new informantion. Though the size of network was large, the operating capability of port enterprises is low. which greatly limited the port enterprises'absorbency of external resources. The low network capability influenced its mediating function and the mismatch of network and network capability makes the coupling more difficult to achieve harmony.Fourth, the harmonious management mechanism of the port enterprises should surround the upgrading of network capability and the optimizing of the network. After the analysis of the harmonious management machniam, this study suggested the "He Principle" included the principle of honesty and integrity, principle of equality, principal of coorporation and principle of sustainable development; the "Xie Principle" included the Principle of customer obsession, principle of respection to the market, principle of compliance and principle of value-creating.