Integrating intangible resources in strategic co-operations of container lines: ships agents' perspective

The discussion of this paper is based on an empirical study conducted in mid 2010 that investigated how intangible resources are integrated during strategic co-operations of container lines. Senior managers of agencies representing global container lines based in Sri Lanka are the respondents of this study. The paper utilises the resource based view (RBV) to discuss the resources in firms. The intangible resources are comprised of intangible assets (intellectual property assets, organisational assets and reputational assets) and capabilities (skills). The activities of several forms of strategic co-operations among container lines are reviewed, namely slot charters, liner conferences and shipping alliances through to mergers and acquisitions (M&As). The empirical study found that the integration of intangible resources is varied among these strategic co-operations; in particular, they differ in M&As. The study also found that the main factors determining the integration of intangible resources were antitrust and other regulations, structure of strategic co-operations and motives for forming them. Due to these factors, the close integration has been limited to few intangible resources. They are sailing schedules, business planning processes, operating and reporting processes. Further the study reveals that loose knitted strategic co-operations such as slot charters, pooling agreements, shipping alliances are more common than M&As among container lines.