A Study Of The Relationship Between Information Technology,Collaboration,Integration And Port Competitiveness

Along with the enlarging global economy and international trade, the rapid development of information and communication technology, the level of global economic integration has become increasingly high. China has become one of the most active regions in the modern economic activity, which can be proved by the rapid development of Chinese ports. Port is the tie of foreign trade for nations and regions and the key element and operation base of the global logistics, which has a pivotal role in the global supply chain management aspects. However, there are many ports not only exposing problems of vicious competition and serious sightless duplicate construction, and it has become a prominent problem that restricts port development about how to enhance the competitiveness of our port and reform system. Among which the relation between the improvement of port competitiveness and global supply chain management has caused much attention in academic and practical departments. Competition between ports is gradually evolved into the competition between the port supply chains, therefore we should shift the research priorities from the port to the port supply chain, and widen the research perspective from local to global logistics process as a whole.The following problems have existed in the integration study of supply chain management theory and port competitiveness theory.(1) Supply chain management theory has achieved great progress since the end of the 20th century. However, there are various problems in port supply chain management including shortage of knowledge, incomplete coordination and integration work in practice, insufficient application of information technology in various components. Meanwhile, no systematic research results have been put forwards on how various factors of supply chain influence ports competitiveness. Therefore, based on the construction of port supply chain analyzing framework, it is important to study how the important factors in the implementation of port supply chain perform their functions. Furthermore, it has been an important trend for the development of this theory that the empirical research should be carried out gradually.(2) In the research on port competitiveness, the view of supply chain management is gradually getting attention. However, the theory is still in the beginning stages. Due to the limitation of theory and research tools, most applications of supply chain management in the port research are still deduced in theory. In these deductions, port supply chain management is regarded as a whole concept, which cannot explain the real concept of port supply chain. Meanwhile, its features, structure, level and influence on improving ports competitiveness are not clear and no further research has been conducted on the topic.This paper focuses on the two main issues above and researches the acting mechanism of the factors of supply chain management to port supply chain, and demonstrate the regulatory role of the intermediary role and competitive advantages of the variable.This paper has carried out the research from the following aspects:(1) Literature review and theoretical development:Based on current supply chain management research, the paper analyzes the state, concept and current research frameworks of port supply chain, deeply studies the port supply chain formation theory and tries to expand the existing supply chain management theory. Meanwhile, the influencing mechanism of port supply chain management on ports competitiveness has also been studied. Based on the review of supply chain management, supply chain management of ports, information technology, coordination of supply chain, integration of supply chain and ports competitiveness, the paper demonstrates and constructs the topic of supply chain management and port competitiveness.(2) Empirical research:based on data collected from 2001 relevant port enterprises in China, a series of empirical research methods including exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, correlation analysis and structural equation modeling are carried out in this paper. In addition, with the comprehensive application of statistical tools including SPSS 17.0 and AMOS 18.0, the influencing mechanism of port supply chain management on ports competitiveness is made clear. Furthermore, based on this mechanism, the paper has expanded current research on supply chain management, and analyzed the guiding meaning in practice.The following conclusions have been found in this paper:(1) Information technology, coordination of supply chain and integration of supply chain have varying degrees of impact on the port competitive.The paper studies the influences of the three port supply chain variables: information technology, coordination of supply chain and integration of supply chain on the competitiveness of port, and the result show that:information technology shows great influence on coordination of supply chain and ports competitiveness, and shows little influence on integration of supply chain and port competitiveness. The coordination of supply chain shows significant influence on the integration of supply chain and port competitiveness. The integration of supply chain has significant influence on port competitiveness.(2) Coordination and integration of supply chain play an intermediary role in the influence of information technology on the port competitive.The three intermediary variables:coordination of supply chain, integration of supply chain, and coordination and integration of supply chain are verified and analyzed in this research. Among which the intermediary impact of coordination of supply chain and coordination and integration of supply is approved, and the intermediary impact of integration of supply chain is disapproved. The coordination work of port enterprises among members is done through informational systems of supply chain, and then realized internal and external supply chain integration. As a result, the ports competitiveness can be improved through interior and the exterior integration.(3) The port competitiveness moderating effect of port competitive strategy.When port enterprises apply supply chain management theory, they can choose reasonable operative strategies according to their competitive strategies. The cost advantage and differentiation advantage in port enterprises introduced in this paper have both promoted and regulated the performance of those enterprises. Particularly, the differentiation strategy plays a more significant moderating role in promoting the ports competitiveness than cost advantage strategy, and port enterprises have moderates on coordination of supply chain and port competitiveness with high level of differentiation advantage.In summary, this research stresses that supply chain management improves port competitiveness. On this issue, the research supplements and expands the theoretical research on supply chain management and port competitiveness to some extent. Meanwhile, the research provides with practical meaning for senior leaders of ports on how to implement supply chain management successfully.