The outsourcing in ship management: Turkish ship owners' attitudes to third party ship management companies

As a managerial decision, the outsourcing has become prevalent in almost every sector. With the effects of the globalisation, competition and rapidly changing environmental conditions, the demand for outsourcing has increased and this situation also has taken hold of the maritime sector. The ship management concept, which is the most important and comprehensive subject for the ship owners, consists of different management types and a wide range of sub services connected to it. It?s getting more inevitable to assign the ship management, an outstanding concept covering a huge scope of principles and sometimes getting more and more complicating, to the professional managers for a variety of reasons. Therefore, rapidly changing market conditions, legal regulations and other environmental factors force ship owners to get service from the professionals. While taking services from certain specialist businesses called third party ship mangement companies, has become highly prevalent especially in Europe and America, such practice has not yet widely preferred in Turkey. In this study, the reasons of this situation were searched. The attitudes and/or perceptions of Turkish ship owners towards third party ship management companies were analyzed and a questionnaire was conducted through Turkish ship owners. Key Words: Outsourcing, Ship Management, Third Party Ship Management, Third Party Ship Management Companies, Turkish Ship Owners.