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National
Science Foundation Funds Study of Air Cargo Services
The
Geography and Regional Science Program, Division
of Behavioral
and Cognitive Sciences at the National Science
Foundation
has recently announced the funding of a collaborative
research project with Thomas
R. Leinbach,
Department of Geography, University of Kentucky
and John T. Bowen, Department of Geography,
University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh as the principal
investigators. The two-year project, “Air Cargo
Services and Competitive Advantage in Industrializing
Economies” extends from September 2000-August
2002 and was funded for $182,000.
Air
cargo is an increasingly vital, though little
researched, link in the contemporary global economy.
Yet the availability and quality of air cargo
services vary among cities, regions, and countries.
This project will examine how variation in air
cargo services affects the competitiveness of
exporting manufacturers and the local economies
within which they operate. Several theoretical
perspectives inform this work. First, the research
builds upon analyses of the internationalization
process, arguing that air cargo services have
become an important means through which some kinds
of manufacturing firms (especially in high tech
electronics industries) gain competitive advantage
in the global economy. Second, the research will
provide new insight into the enhanced tradability
of services. Liberalization and advances in information
technology have been catalysts for the expanded
international trade in services, including those
related to air cargo. Finally, this study will
contribute to the growing body of work examining
the interaction between firms providing and firms
using producer services. Through questionnaire
surveys and in-depth interviews with air cargo
carriers and exporting manufacturers, both the
supply and demand dimensions of air cargo services
will be assessed in the context of Malaysia, the
Philippines, and Singapore. Utilizing both quantitative
and qualitative methods, models will be developed
to show how the use of air cargo services changes
as firms internationalize their operations, how
foreign-owned and locally owned firms differ in
their relationships with air cargo carriers, and
how greater use of information technology has
changed relationships in the air cargo industry.
While
there is a significant descriptive and growing
theoretical literature on producer services, virtually
none of this addresses air cargo. Heretofore air
cargo has been treated simply as a means of transport
for certain special goods. However, the accelerated
emergence of a new international division of labor
and concomitant reach by firms for competitive
advantage has produced an evolution in the technological
sophistication and organizational structure of
the air transport industry. Airlines have developed
broader product lines of different speed services,
used communication advances to accelerate the
flow of information among air cargo shippers and
carriers, and formed international alliances to
better serve multinational corporations. In essence,
a much richer set of services has been developed.
An exploration of these complex services, the
carriers that provide them, and the exporters
that use them in three dynamic Southeast Asian
economies will demonstrate the role of air cargo
as an influence upon the competitiveness of developing
economies.
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