Türkiye'de faaliyet gösteren Ro-Ro şirketlerinin rekabet stratejisi ve firma performansı arasındaki ilişkinin belirlenmesi

Recent developments in international trade have raised the demand for multimodal transport solutions which allows less dependency on pollutant, costly and risky road transport. Several studies have revealed that maritime transport is the most environmentally friendly transport mode alternative to road. Especially, short sea Roll-on/Roll-off (Ro-Ro) shipping has been addressed in many several policy papers as a significant means of shifting cargoes from road to sea and realizing sustainable economic developments. Ro-Ro transportation is considered the most suitable maritime transportation system in our country thanks to its strategic geographic position, advanced land network connections, and increasing trade volume. However, many Ro-Ro companies have suffered either enter into the market or, even if they achieved entrance, to maintain their operations. The key issue is here to analyze the market environment accurately, and to choose the best fit strategy which leads companies to gain sustainable competitive advantage and improve firm performance. This study aims to tackle competitive strategy and firm performance relationship within the Ro-Ro shipping context. In this regard, twelve competitive strategy components and three firm performance criteria were identified through literature reviews and semi-structured interviews. Then, contextual relationships among these variables were determined and developed into a model via the Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) technique. Afterward, most critical variables composing the model were evaluated by means of Cross-Impact Matrix Multiplication Applied to Classification (MICMAC) analysis. According to the research findings, customer orientation and responsiveness, operational flexibility, innovativeness and R&D are the most critical strategy components, while market share is the best performance indicator for Ro-Ro companies operating in Turkey. It is recommended these companies' managers to adopt hybrid strategies to boost firm performance.