Developing Accountable Maritime Transport and Port Organizational Structures in Arab Countries

Abstract

The absence of specific goals, functions, integrity and a clear chain of command in the maritime transport system organizational structure (OS) in the Arab world may lead to creating trade tensions, increasing export restrictions, increasing economic and social costs, and other obstacles that impede the achievement of the strategic goal of maritime transport. This research aims to propose an integrated organizational structure that shows the relations and dependencies of all elements in the maritime transport system and the ports authorities, which helps in creating a stronger internal organizational environment. The proposed OSs are meant to improve maritime activities such as shipbuilding and ship scrapping, and to increase coordination and integration between the maritime transport sector and the authority for maritime safety through identifying the role of each entity within the proposed OSs. It is an exploratory multiple case study research, where a qualitative research method is conducted using interviews. The research approach has taken the following steps: (1) 47 world maritime transport organizational structures (MTOSs) that are selected and criticized according to six criteria; (2) data and information of 47 MTOSs were collected using documentation from official websites of governments;(3) the characteristics and challenges facing current MTOSs are identified; (4) the proposed MTOSs are projected; (5) purposive expert sampling technique is used for the validation of the proposed MTOSs and POS through the conduction of semi structured and unstructured interviews; (6) the proposed model is readjusted and implemented in Egypt according to the experts' feedback; and (7) external and internal validity were also tested to ensure that generalizability of the research is shown within its scope.