ABSTRACT

Purpose

Port congestion remains a significant operational challenge within global maritime logistics networks, particularly for food cold chain systems that depend on strict delivery schedules and temperature-controlled transportation. Ireland, as a peripheral island economy heavily reliant on maritime trade, is especially vulnerable to congestion-related disruptions due to concentrated port activity, limited infrastructure redundancy and increasing pressure on major gateways such as Dublin Port and Rosslare Europort. Existing studies primarily examine port congestion from infrastructure and efficiency perspectives, while limited attention has been paid to its implications for delivery schedules within food cold chain logistics and the resilience responses adopted by operational stakeholders. Furthermore, much of the current literature remains quantitatively oriented and insufficiently captures the organisational and experiential dimensions of congestion management in practice.

This study investigates the impact of port congestion on the delivery schedules of food cold chain companies operating in Ireland. It further explores the resilience mechanisms employed by logistics stakeholders to mitigate congestion-induced disruptions. The research specifically examines how congestion influences lead-time reliability, temperature compliance, operational coordination and decision-making processes across cold chain activities. By focusing on Ireland’s food cold chain sector, the study addresses an underexplored contextual gap in maritime logistics and contributes empirically grounded insights into supply chain resilience within peripheral port systems.

Design/Methodology/Approach

The study adopts an interpretivist research philosophy and an inductive qualitative research design to explore how port congestion is experienced and managed within Ireland’s food cold chain sector. A qualitative approach was selected because congestion-related disruption is operationally complex, context-dependent and socially embedded across multiple supply chain actors. Quantitative indicators alone are insufficient to capture the organisational and relational dimensions associated with congestion management and delivery schedule disruption.

Primary data were collected through eight semi-structured interviews with stakeholders directly involved in food cold chain logistics and port operations. Participants included representatives from port authorities, freight forwarders, logistics service providers and food supply chain operators with direct experience managing congestion-related disruptions. Semi-structured interviews enabled consistent exploration of key themes while allowing respondents flexibility to discuss operational experiences, coordination challenges and resilience practices.

All interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using NVivo-supported thematic analysis. An inductive coding approach was employed to allow themes to emerge directly from participant accounts rather than being predetermined. Analytical rigor was strengthened through iterative coding, cross-case comparison and thematic validation across interviews. The methodology enabled the identification of recurring patterns relating to congestion drivers, operational impacts and resilience mechanisms affecting food cold chain delivery schedules within Ireland.

Findings

The findings demonstrate that port congestion has a direct and sustained impact on delivery schedules within Ireland’s food cold chain sector. Participants reported recurring short-term delays in delivery schedules for example, one respondent noted that "cold chain shipments face four to six hours delays regularly," suggesting that such disruptions represent a persistent operational challenge within food cold chain logistics generating notable lead-time variability, delivery uncertainty and increased pressure on temperature-sensitive logistics operations. Congestion-related disruption intensified risks associated with spoilage, reduced schedule predictability and increased operational costs across transport and storage activities.

Several interconnected causes of congestion were identified, including limited cold chain infrastructure, reefer plug shortages, customs processing delays, vessel bunching, labour shortages and coordination inefficiencies among stakeholders. Participants indicated that post-Brexit regulatory changes and seasonal demand fluctuations further intensified operational pressures within Irish ports.

The analysis also highlights the importance of organisational and relational resilience mechanisms in mitigating congestion impacts. Stakeholders relied on contingency planning, flexible scheduling, rerouting strategies, collaborative problem-solving and informal communication channels to maintain operational continuity. Human judgement and experiential knowledge were found to play a central role in real-time disruption management, often compensating for infrastructural and technological limitations. Although digital tools such as GPS tracking and real-time visibility systems supported responsiveness, participants noted that uneven technological integration across stakeholders limited overall effectiveness.

Value

This study contributes empirically and conceptually to research on port congestion, food cold chain logistics and supply chain resilience. Empirically, it provides context-specific insights into how congestion disrupts delivery schedules within Ireland’s food cold chain sector, an area that remains underrepresented within maritime logistics literature. Conceptually, the study extends resilience discourse by emphasising the role of organisational coordination, human judgement and relational capabilities in managing congestion-related disruption alongside infrastructural and technological considerations.

The findings also offer practical value for port authorities, logistics managers and policymakers seeking to improve delivery reliability within temperature-sensitive supply chains. The study supports the development of integrated congestion mitigation strategies that combine infrastructure investment, digital visibility and collaborative operational planning.

Research Limitations/Implications

The study is limited by its qualitative design and relatively small sample size, which restricts broader generalizability beyond the Irish context. Findings are based on self-reported operational experiences and may therefore reflect subjective interpretation. Future research could adopt longitudinal or mixed-method approaches to examine congestion resilience across broader cold chain environments and compare operational responses across multiple port systems.

Practical Implications

The findings indicate that improving delivery schedule reliability within food cold chain logistics requires integrated coordination between port authorities, logistics providers and regulatory agencies. Investment in cold chain infrastructure, enhanced customs coordination and real-time information-sharing systems may strengthen congestion resilience. The study also highlights the importance of collaborative operational planning and adaptive scheduling practices in maintaining continuity within time-sensitive food supply chains.

Keywords

Cold chain logistics; port congestion; delivery schedules; supply chain resilience; Ireland; food logistics

Purpose

Maritime service providers face increasingly frequent disruptions from pandemics, geopolitical conflicts, regulatory changes, and climate events (Li et al., 2024). These disruptions generate paradoxical outcomes within the maritime sector: whilst many organisations experience severe operational and financial distress, others achieve exceptional growth. During COVID-19, numerous shipping companies recorded unprecedented profitability (Notteboom et al., 2021). This phenomenon appears particularly pronounced in developing countries such as Vietnam, where smaller and flexible organisations rapidly exploited opportunities from global supply chain reconfigurations. Despite this reality, understanding how maritime organisations identify and exploit disruption-induced opportunities remains limited. Whilst substantial research exists on maritime supply chain disruption management, previous studies have predominantly focused on defensive resilience strategies such as how organisations mitigate threats, recover from disruptions, and build robustness (Nguyen et al., 2022). This research addresses this gap by investigating opportunity identification and exploitation mechanisms in maritime logistics providers through three specific aims. First, the study identifies opportunity types that disruptions create. Second, it uncovers sensing mechanisms through which organisations detect these opportunities. Third, it determines seizing capabilities deployed to capitalise on them.

Design/Methodology/Approach

This study employed a inductive qualitative research design grounded in critical realism and dynamic capabilities theory (Teece, 2007). Semi-structured in-depth interviews were selected as the primary data collection method for their capacity to capture rich, contextualised insights within maritime contexts.

Data saturation (Hennink and Kaiser, 2022) was achieved with 15 participants from diverse maritime logistics organisations, including shipping lines and maritime logistics providers in Vietnam. Purposive expert sampling was employed to involve information-rich participants in senior management positions with minimum five years of experience, complemented by snowball sampling to reach out to industry experts.

The interview protocol comprised three thematic sections. The first explored types of opportunities emerging from past disruptions. The second examined how organisations identify early signals of opportunity arising from disruptions. The third investigated the capabilities deployed to capitalise on identified opportunities. These questions specifically probed participants' experiences navigating COVID-19, geopolitical conflicts, regulatory changes, and market volatility. Interviews lasted 45-90 minutes, were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and rigorously translated from Vietnamese using forward-backward translation (Koller et al., 2012).

Data analysis was conducted, using theGioia methodology (Gioia et al., 2013), progressing through first-order concepts, second-order themes, and aggregate theoretical dimensions. This systematic process revealed eight distinct opportunity and capability themes. Trustworthiness and rigour were ensured following established qualitative criteria: credibility, dependability, confirmability, transferability, and authenticity (Connelly, 2016) guaranteeing that findings were robust and reflective of participants' experiences.

Findings

The research reveals that maritime disruptions create three primary opportunity dimensions. First, strategic rethinking evolution manifests through enhanced inter-organisational collaboration, resilience-oriented perspectives, and sustainability integration into core strategies. Disruptions forced organisations to abandon traditional paradigms and adopt adaptive frameworks prioritising proactive foresight, with sustainability evolving from regulatory compliance to competitive differentiation. Second, accelerated innovation emerges as disruptions catalyse technology adoption, fleet modernisation, and creative problem-solving typically resisted under stable conditions. Regulatory pressures and operational constraints drove innovative solutions generating new revenue streams. Third, market dynamics encompass competitive filtering that eliminates weaker firms whilst rewarding resilient ones, operational boundary expansion into integrated logistics ecosystems, and supply-demand imbalances creating exceptional profitability through freight rate escalations.

The research identifies sophisticated sensing capabilities including analogical sensing leveraging experiential learning and cultural foresight, and consensus-based sensing utilising relational intelligence networks. Systematic opportunity sensing appeared predominantly in larger, internationally connected organisations, whilst smaller entities relied on senior staff experience with minimal formalisation.

Regarding exploitation, organisations deployed fast and frugal decision-making adapted to time pressures, including satisficing approaches and familiarity-based triggers. Coordinated response mechanisms encompassed cross-functional collaboration and stakeholder engagement. Exploitation capability depended heavily on organisational size, with larger firms maintaining slack resources whilst smaller organisations often lacked capitalisation capacity. Ultimately, competitive advantage emerges only where sensing and exploitation mechanisms operate as an integrated, mutually reinforcing architecture.

Value

This research makes original contributions by reconceptualising disruptions as opportunity-rich environments rather than merely threats, challenging conventional resilience theory assumptions. It delivers scientific utility to scholars by systematically unpacking sensing-seizing mechanisms as micro-foundations of adaptive resilience, improving conceptual rigor for operationalising dynamic capabilities in crisis contexts. The study provides maritime executives with actionable frameworks for building opportunity-oriented cultures and capability development. It guides policymakers in designing targeted industry support mechanisms, whilst offering new entrant’s strategic insights for navigating disruption dynamics in emerging markets.

Research Limitations/Implications

This qualitative study provides rich insights into mechanisms but limits statistical generalisability. The findings derive primarily from successful organisations, potentially introducing survivorship bias. Future research could employ quantitative methods to test relationships between capabilities and growth outcomes across larger samples, incorporating diversified maritime experts from other nations. Comparative studies and longitudinal investigations tracking organisations through disruption cycles would illuminate contingency factors and temporal dynamics.

Practical Implications

Maritime logistics providers should implement formal opportunity sensing frameworks rather than relying solely on senior staff experience. Managers should enhance relational intelligence networks through disciplined relationship maintenance and establish coordination mechanisms before disruptions materialise. Organisations should document lessons learned from previous disruptions to build institutional knowledge of opportunity patterns. Strategic financial management should maintain slack resources, enabling opportunity capitalisation when competitors lack resources. Industry associations and policymakers should facilitate information-sharing platforms enhancing collective sensing capabilities across the maritime ecosystem.

References

Connelly, L.M. (2016), “Trustworthiness in Qualitative Research”, Medsurg Nursing: Official Journal of the Academy of Medical-Surgical Nurses, Vol. 25 No. 6, pp. 435–436.

Gioia, D.A., Corley, K.G. and Hamilton, A.L. (2013), “Seeking Qualitative Rigor in Inductive Research: Notes on the Gioia Methodology”, Organizational Research Methods, SAGE Publications Inc, Vol. 16 No. 1, pp. 15–31, doi: 10.1177/1094428112452151.

Hennink, M. and Kaiser, B.N. (2022), “Sample sizes for saturation in qualitative research: A systematic review of empirical tests”, Social Science & Medicine, Vol. 292, p. 114523, doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114523.

Koller, M., Kantzer, V., Mear, I., Zarzar, K., Martin, M., Greimel, E., Bottomley, A., et al. (2012), “The process of reconciliation: Evaluation of guidelines for translating quality-of-life questionnaires”, Expert Review of Pharmacoeconomics & Outcomes Research, Vol. 12, pp. 189–97, doi: 10.1586/erp.11.102.

Li, X., Chua, J.Y. and Yuen, K.F. (2024), “A review on maritime disruption management: Categories, impacts, and strategies”, Transport Policy, Vol. 154, pp. 40–47, doi: 10.1016/j.tranpol.2024.05.013.

Nguyen, T.-T., My Tran, D.T., Duc, T.T.H. and Thai, V.V. (2022), “Managing disruptions in the maritime industry – a systematic literature review”, Maritime Business Review, Emerald Publishing Limited, Vol. 8 No. 2, pp. 170–190, doi: 10.1108/MABR-09-2021-0072.

Notteboom, T., Pallis, T. and Rodrigue, J.-P. (2021), “Disruptions and resilience in global container shipping and ports: the COVID-19 pandemic versus the 2008–2009 financial crisis”, Maritime Economics & Logistics, Vol. 23 No. 2, pp. 179–210, doi: 10.1057/s41278-020-00180-5.

Teece, D.J. (2007), “Explicating dynamic capabilities: the nature and microfoundations of (sustainable) enterprise performance”, Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 28 No. 13, pp. 1319–1350, doi: 10.1002/smj.640.

Purpose of the paper: Despite the critical role of logistics connectivity in balancing efficiency with sustainability, the limited transparency of successful operational strategies remains a significant barrier to organizational optimization. The purpose of this study is to examine Japanese award-winning supply chain innovation (SCI) initiatives to provide an evidence-based synthesis of the strategies and practices that drive connectivity excellence, offering a benchmark for organizational adaptation.

Design/methodology/approach: The study employs reflexive thematic analysis of six Gold Prize-winning case documentations (2020-2025) from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) SCI Award, representing Japan's highest recognition for supply chain transformation.

Findings: Three interrelated themes emerged: connectivity design, connectivity coordination, and White Logistics outcomes. Connectivity design establishes the structural foundations through network architecture reconfiguration and the development of digital infrastructure. Connectivity coordination operationalizes these foundations through standardized processes, collaborative analytics, aligned incentive mechanisms, and joint governance structures. These dimensions function sequentially, with their integration enabling sustainability outcomes including improved operational efficiency, reduced worker burden, and enhanced supply chain resilience.

Value/Originality: The findings of this study contribute a structured framework for understanding the mechanisms through which leading Japanese firms construct and manage logistics connectivity to achieve integrated operational and sustainability objectives. In doing so, the study enhances international accessibility to specialized Japanese supply chain knowledge, mitigating the language barriers that have limited the integration of these regional strategies into global scholarly discourse.

Practical implications: This study translates award-winning case studies into scalable implementation models adaptable across diverse organizational contexts, providing supply chain practitioners with a structured, sequential framework to realize concurrent operational and sustainability outcomes through logistics connectivity.