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ZHANG Hanyu, WU Jiayi, LIN Xirui, ZHAO Tianen
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DOI:10.17265/2328-2185/2026.04.006
Suzhou High School of Jiangsu Province, Suzhou, China
Port automation is transforming global maritime trade, yet its effect on the balance of bargaining power between ports and shipping alliances remains unclear. Using Shanghai Yangshan Deep-Water Port as a case study, this essay examines how automation-driven efficiency gains interact with market structure to shape port bargaining power in the short and long run. Ports operate in a moderately competitive, technology-intensive market, while shipping alliances form a tight oligopoly that controls the majority of global container capacity. In the short run, automation lowers costs and concentrates traffic at early-adopting ports, temporarily strengthening their negotiating position. However, as automation diffuses industry-wide, cost advantages erode, competition intensifies, and involution sets in: throughput rises while per-unit margins stagnate. Consequently, the surplus generated by efficiency gains increasingly accrues to shipping alliances rather than to ports. The essay concludes that automation alone does not guarantee ports greater economic power, and proposes two countervailing strategies, deliberate service differentiation and coordinated capacity planning among ports, or the formation of a unified national shipping alliance, while acknowledging the practical limitations of each.
port automation, bargaining power, shipping alliances, oligopoly, marine trade, Yangshan Port
ZHANG Hanyu, WU Jiayi, LIN Xirui, ZHAO Tianen. (2026). Why Efficiency Gains Do Not Guarantee Economic Power: How Port Automation Affects Bargaining Dynamics in the Marine Trade Industry. Management Studies, Vol. 14, No. 4, 240-248. doi: 10.17265/2328-2185/2026.04.006.
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