The fit of port governance models, institutional structure and fragmentation in volatile environments

On Wednesday, 11th January, Prof. Dr. Gordon Wilmsmeier will hold his inaugural. The lecture is open to the public. After the lecture there will be a buffet and drinks.

While attendance is free of charge, we only have limited seats available. Please register ahead of time via e-mail at: events.faculty@klu.org with your full name and organisation. Please consider this carefully because we are booking a caterer for this event.

• Registration mandatory by e-mail.
• Reception after lecture.
• Venue: Forum / Foyer.

Thirty years ago, the first port reform in Colombia resulted in the abolition of the state monopoly of ports and the development of concessions in the main ports. This reform was aligned with the widespread ‘first global wave’ of port reforms and was the first one in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Colombian program was, however, marked by a number of peculiarities. The most striking variation is the absence of a classic Port Authority in the current institutional structure - i.e., a single managing entity responsible for managing, developing, and regulating one or more ports at either local, regional or national level. The country’s port system has been governed by a plurality of institutions, each of them responsible for specific aspects of port governance. The timeline allows for a reflection on the present model, including the development of a future vision. What are the implications of this institutional fragmentation? This research applies the Matching Framework and questions the structure and strategy of the current governance model and its fit to the current volatile environment. In order to feed the analysis. The research builds in a mixed two step approach including. The first step includes an online survey of the Colombian public and private sector on the current and future and expectations of the responsibilities of port governance and their distribution among different institutions. The responses of the survey are analysed applying social network analysis, contrasting public and private sector perceptions as well as future preferences of the institutional port governance structure. The results are discussed in relationship to in-depth semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders in the public and private sector. This empirical work examines the extent that institutional fragmentation undermines the standing of public and private actors, vis-a-vis port governance, i.e., their understanding of the rules of the game and their long-term strategic vision for the port sector, the potential intra-sectoral divisions, and whether the lacking capacities of the ports managing entities has led to a lack of leadership and a structure-strategy mismatch that undermines improvements in respective ports on two dimensions of port governance activities: port policy, and concessions.

Gordon Wilmsmeier is the Director of the Hapag-Lloyd Centre for Shipping and Global Logistics (CSGL) at Kühne Logistics University, Hamburg, Germany. At the same time he holds the Kühne Professorial Chair in Logistics at the School of Management, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia. From October 2020 until August 2022, he worked with the Vice-presidency for Research and Creation at Universidad de los Andes as the Director of the Project Development Office and since October 2022 he is the Strategic Coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Research Centers of the Vice-presidency. Gordon is Honorary Professor for Maritime Geography at the University of Applied Sciences in Bremen, Germany. From 2011 to 2017, he worked as Economic Affairs Officer in the Infrastructure Services Unit at the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (UN-ECLAC). Previously he worked at Edinburgh Napier University’s Transport Research Institute (TRI), Scotland (2007-2011) and as consultant for UN-ECLAC, UNCTAD, UN-OHRLLS, the World Bank, Adelphi Research, JICA, IDB, CAF, OAS. Gordon received his PhD in Geography from the University of Osnabrück and graduated as geographer from the Technische Universität Dresden, Germany. Gordon Wilmsmeier’s research focuses on maritime transport geography and economics, port economics and inland shipping issues. Recent projects focus on port governance, sustainable port development, energy transition, competition in liner shipping market, digitalization and technology in supply chains, as well as nautical electromobility. He has published over 100 book chapters, journal papers, institutional publications and working papers. His recent books include: "Geographies of Maritime Transport and Maritime Mobilities". In 2022 his work on climate change adaptation was cited in the IPCC report. He is leader of the global port performance research network (PPRN – https://pprn.network), and Council member of the International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME), member of the WCTRS Special Interest Group - Intermodal Freight, and associate member of PortEconomics. Since 2020 his research group is part of IDB´s university network “Energy Hub for Latin America and the Caribbean”. For research details please visit: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=utqkvlMAAAAJ&hl=en